Emergency Preparedness Tools Enable More People to Shelter in Place

The New York Academy of Medicine today released a report based on two years’ work gathering the insights and experiences of nearly 2,000 people who live and work in four communities around the United States. With the Public’s Knowledge, We Can Make Sheltering in Place Possible will enable households, work places, schools and early childhood/youth programs, and governments to anticipate and address problems they would face in emergencies.

The report identifies serious and unanticipated problems that currently make it neither feasible nor safe for many people to shelter in place. The Academy also released four Shelter-in-Place Issue Sets to help members of households and organizations recognize and address their own vulnerabilities in these kinds of emergencies. Sheltering in place means staying inside whatever building you happen to be in—a workplace, school, store, or at home—for a period of a few hours to several days in order to stay safe, even if that requires you to be separated from other family members.

Learn more about the process for creating these tools from this Kellogg Foundation grant with the New York Academy of Medicine.