METHODS: To advance this effort, the California Department of Public Health proposed identifying actionable interventions by conducting assessments of households in urban and semi-rural areas of 2 Sierra and Central Valley counties affected by drought. Assessments used the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Community Assessment for Public Health Preparedness and Response (CASPER) method. CASPER uses a two-stage cluster sampling method using census blocks as clusters, with clusters selected from within sampling frames identified by county health departments. Interview teams conducted door-to-door surveys in these communities Oct and Nov, 2015, with seven households in each cluster, selected by systematic random sampling, to generate findings likely to be representative of the overall sampling frames’ households.
RESULTS: This session will review the process of mobilization of county and state resources to capture household-level data (i.e., demographics, knowledge and attitudes about the drought, utilization of social services, behavioral changes, access to water, and water conservation) to identify community knowledge gaps and perceptions, evaluate effectiveness of ongoing county public health initiatives addressing the drought, and better identify populations at risk.
CONCLUSIONS: The public health effects of drought in the United States are largely unknown. Here, we will describe the process and results of a household-level community assessment of communities heavily impacted by the California drought designed to describe behavioral changes, water usage, and their impact on the health of the communities.