Table of Contents
Biosecurity Center Training Workers in
Border Health
Surveillance
As part of a national effort to protect U.S. borders from emerging infectious diseases and bioterrorism threats, a $1 million project led by The University of Texas School of Public Health is training public health professionals along the Texas-Mexico border in disease surveillance and preparedness.
Scott R. Lillibridge, M.D.
The border health project, called La Frontera, uses expert instruction, hands-on training and emergency simulations to teach local public health workers to effectively monitor the health of border populations and the approximately 100 million people who cross the Texas-Mexico border, both legally and illegally, each year.
“The importance of this project is that it promotes early warning related to outbreaks of infectious diseases while enhancing the workforce development related to disease surveillance,” said Scott R. Lillibridge, M.D., director of the Center for Biosecurity and Public Health Preparedness at the UT School of Public Health. “We’re bringing health and security to Texas.”
La Frontera, funded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Department of State Health Services, instructs members of the public health community – from firefighters to nurses – in the 15 Texas border counties that are contiguous to the U.S. border.
Training sessions include: disease recognition and reporting, bioterrorism agents recognition and reporting, linking surveillance with quarantine, basic and advanced disaster life support, epidemiology, clinical awareness of terrorism, and surveillance for infectious disease and bioterrorism.
The UT School of Public Health is collaborating with: the UT Health Science Center at San Antonio, UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, the Texas A&M University System Health Science Center School of Rural Public Health, the University of North Texas Health Science Center School of Public Health and Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center School of Medicine. Officials from the four U.S. border states and Mexico also participate.
By Melanie Hillis, Public Affairs