Buncombe County is moving forward with a post-Helene health survey despite federal cuts abruptly canceling the project in April.
The CASPER survey is used when communities have experienced severe and high-profile threats to public health. Usually, local governments partner with the CDC to run the survey but the service stopped last month when 10,000 workers at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services were dismissed.
“It was important to us to get a better picture of what the public health needs were as a whole within Buncombe County,” said Nathan Greene, the county’s Public Health Preparedness Officer. “Obviously we know what the destruction looks like, but we wanted a better picture of the whole county’s health. And that's what the CASPER survey will tell us.”
Now, Buncombe will partner with local fire departments and North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services to conduct the survey. It is also paying Spacial Consulting $8,200 for data analysis. Buncombe is using Hurricane Helene recovery funds earmarked for health departments.
About 30 people will knock on doors throughout the county June 4-6. Results should come out around a week later, Greene said.
The CASPER, Community Assessment for Public Health Emergency Response, survey identifies emergency and disaster response needs. Though it was “originally designed to provide information during a disaster response, it can also be used for “population-representative data … during other disaster phases,” according to the CDC website.
CASPER was used in Flint, Mich., after the city faced a long-term water and lead exposure crisis. Eleven North Carolina municipalities have leveraged the tool in the past, according to CDC data.
The survey aims to gather data on housing status, employment, insurance, why people did/did not evacuate, household damage (including mold and mildew), safety and other public health information.
It will also serve as a touchpoint for households who might need help connecting with resources, including well water testing kits and disaster case management.
“The data that CASPER provides helps public health leadership to identify issues and then develop solutions – and also to track that data and monitor that data to respond to future issues,” county spokesperson Stacey Wood said. “So it’s about learning what’s going on right here now, but also developing plans and preparing for future issues that we might see.”
For example, data collected on why people did or did not evacuate could help Buncombe develop a stronger evacuation plan for the next disaster, Wood said.
