Emergency Responder Health Monitoring and Surveillance™ (ERHMS™)

Significant gaps and deficiencies continue to exist in health monitoring and surveillance of the 3.5 million emergency response workers, such as, police, fire, emergency medical personnel, cleanup, repair, restoration, and recovery workers. Emergency response workers must be protected from the hazardous conditions created when responding to disasters and other emergencies, such as a hurricane, earthquake, or infectious disease outbreak. A plan for monitoring the health and conducting surveillance of emergency responders is essential to ensure their health and safety.

Recognizing this, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) worked with the U.S. National Response Team (NRT), and several federal agencies, state health departments, labor unions, and volunteer emergency responder groups to develop the Emergency Responder Health Monitoring and Surveillance™ (ERHMS™) framework. The framework provides recommendations for protecting emergency responders during small and large emergencies in any setting. It is for use by all who are involved in the deployment and protection of emergency responders, including incident command staff, response organization leadership, health, safety and medical personnel, and emergency responders.