ERHMS

Health and Safety Training

Purpose

Health and safety training is critical for the preparedness of emergency responders. The responders are required to be fully 

certified to perform duty-specific tasks, which may have federal, state or local training requirements. The Emergency Responder Health Monitoring and Surveillance (ERHMS) system could capture what training arriving responders have when 

reporting to the disaster and document its effectiveness to the response and afterward.

Principles of Health and Safety Training

• The pre-deployment training that responders need largely depends on their previous training and experience as 

well as the nature of the work they will be doing.

• The site-specific training that many responders will require involves more extensive training based on the nature 

of their anticipated work and any individual risk factors identified in the core screening process. 

Health and Safety Training Data: Action Items

• Responder training data should be collected at all phases of an incident. 

• The authority who has jurisdiction for the responder should have documentation of certification and refresher 

training per local, state, and federal requirements. 

• Training data should be collected and maintained through a designated office and be available to other 

components of the Incident Command System during the rostering process. 

• Data collected should include all training completed to support certification. 

• An out-processing assessment should be performed to ensure that identified training gaps are resolved prior to 

the next deployment.
ERHMS

Proper training and documentation strengthens responder readiness and safety. Below is an example of a table used to 

record trainings.

Responder Training Documentation form

Category Topic Training Received?

SAFETY AWARENESS

Driving Hazard Awareness

Environmental Conditions

Personal Protective Equipment

Disaster Zone Safety

COMMUNICATIONS

Hazard Communications

Incident Action Plan

Health and Safety Plan

Standard Operating Guide/Procedure

Situation Reports

Mobile Communications

SELF CARE/BUDDY CARE

Physical

Emotional

Medical

Work schedule

ORGANIZATION Incident Command System

National Incident Management System

DECONTAMINATION

Chemical/Biological decontamination

Gross decontamination

Equipment decontamination

SITE OPERATIONS

Site Control

Credentialing

Accountability

DISASTER CHARACTERIZATION Specific Disaster Types

Emergency Responder Health Monitoring and Surveillance

The ERHMS system is a health monitoring and surveillance framework that includes recommendations and tools specific 

to protect emergency responders during the pre-deployment, deployment, and post-deployment phases of a disaster. 

The intent of ERHMS is to identify exposures and/or signs and symptoms early in the course of an emergency response 

in order to prevent or mitigate adverse physical and psychological outcomes and ensure workers maintain their ability to 

respond effectively and are not harmed in the course of this response work. Data will also help to identify during the postdeployment phase which responders would benefit from medical referral and possible enrollment in a long-term health 

surveillance program. Please refer to Chapter 3 and section 3T for more information on Health and Safety Training.

National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) ERHMS Contact:

! CDR Renée Funk, Coordinator, ERHMS at rfunk@cdc.gov or 404-498-1376

For more information on ERHMS, please visit: 

erhms.nrt.org & www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/erhms