More than 14 million children in the United States attend summer camps yearly, including many special medical needs children. Summer camps are at risk for multiple pediatric casualties during a disaster. The American Camp Association, in the 2017 critical issues report, identified emergency preparedness as the top critical health and safety issue. Camps, compared to school-based settings, face unique challenges when planning for disasters, but research has been challenging because of the lack of access to camp leadership and data.

Provide a targeted up-to-date synopsis on the current state of disaster preparedness and ongoing collaborative research and technology interventions for improving preparedness among summer camps.

Researchers partnered with a national health records system (CampDoc.com) and American Academy of Pediatrics disaster experts to review results from a national camp survey. Main themes were identified to assess gaps and develop strategies for improving disaster preparedness.

169 camps responses were received from national camp leadership. A substantial proportion of camps were missing 4 critical areas of disaster planning: 1) Most lacked online emergency plans (53%), methods to communicate information to parents (25%), or strategies to identify children for evacuation/reunification (40%); 2) Disaster plans failed to account for special/medical needs children (38%); 3) Staff training rates were low for weather (58%), evacuation (46%), and lockdown (36%); 4) Most camps (75%) did not plan with disaster organizations.

Collaboration with industry and disaster experts will be key to address the gaps identified. Current research and interventions include the recent release of a communication alert tool allowing camps to send mass text emergency notifications. Additionally, a recent pilot to incorporate disaster plans into the electronic health records platform emphasizing communication, evacuation, and identification of local experts has begun. Efforts to develop a unified disaster tool kit for summer camps remains a challenge.