The Role of Student Health Services in Disaster Preparedness at Institutes of Higher Education in the United States: A Scoping Review

Public health emergencies, such as environmental or human-caused disasters or infectious disease outbreaks, have the potential to disrupt the lives of everyone connected to colleges and universities, from students, faculty, and staff to the members of the community in which the institute of higher education (IHE) is situated. Student health services are important campus partners that support the health and well-being of students on campus, yet little is known about how they are engaging in epidemiological practices which support public health emergency preparedness. Little is known about the role of health services in the greater context of campus emergency preparedness or how well health services were supported by campus emergency management in their preparedness activities prior to the pandemic. To answer this question, we will conduct a scoping review of peer-reviewed and grey literature published after 2000 when the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) established the Disaster Resilient Universities (DRU) initiative to support IHEs efforts to mitigate and respond to disasters, signifying a sea change in emergency management at IHEs.51 We hypothesize that historically, student health services have been overlooked by disaster researchers and emergency preparedness professionals as a critical campus partners and response capacity at IHEs. We further hypothesize that when student health services are included in emergency planning and response, core epidemiological functions will be more likely to be performed.