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Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions

Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions (NPI) include a wide variety of layered, non-medical harm reduction strategies such as isolation and quarantine, enhanced hygiene, protective equipment, and social distancing which mitigate the hazards and risks associated with different threats. We all have had a crash-course in NPI over the last year. Prior to this, however, many towns had never heard of NPIs, let alone considered how they would plan for or implement NPIs.

Prior to the pandemic, WRHSAC had begun work to raise awareness of NPI and to develop an implementation guide for Public Health and other municipal officials. The NPI Quick Implementation Guide is designed to walk Boards of Health and community officials through the process of determining the need for NPI based on a variety of hazards and their transmission routes using a step-by-step process that aids implementation, communications, determining needed resources, ensuring health equity, monitoring data, and demobilization.

The guide includes three primary tools: 1) Public Health Emergency NPI Response Steps 2)Hazards, Threats and Transmission Routes and 3)Decision Matrix.

The NPI Quick Implementation Guide can be downloaded. WRHSAC extends thanks to Berkshire Regional Planning Commission for their work on developing the guide. WRHSAC will be developing additional supports for the guide in months to come.

To support your use of the NPI Quick Implementation Guide, WRHSAC has created a free, online learning lesson. The lesson provides several scenarios to help you become familiar with using the guide.

Additionally, WRHSAC held an online workshop to enhance understanding of what constitutes an NPI, why they are important, how to use the Quick Implementation Guide and best practices for making decisions regarding NPI implementation and assessing both the cost and effectiveness of NPI strategy chosen.

The webinar was recorded and can be watched here: