Celebrate Get Ready Day Sept. 19 and spread the word about the importance of preparedness

It’s almost time for Get Ready Day — and that means it’s time to celebrate preparedness!

Held each year on the third Tuesday in September, APHA's Get Ready Day is timed to coincide with National Preparedness Month. This year, the 11th annual observance is on Sept. 19. That’s just a few weeks away, so now is the perfect time to start planning.

The good news is that the Get Ready campaign has free tools to make planning easy. Our Get Ready Event Guide offers a variety of event ideas, from holding a health fair to an emergency preparedness talk, and suggests partners to team up with, such as fire departments and local schools.

The guide gives you an event checklist and even a sample donation letter and news release you could use to further promote your event. And don’t forget our dozens of fact sheets on preparedness topics! 

If you need cool giveaways for your event, check out the Get Ready Store for items you can order now and hand out.

No time to hold an event? Post a message about Get Ready Day on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram and encourage others to take part and spread the word. For Twitter, use the #GetReadyDay hashtag, and follow us at @GetReady.

We’re looking forward to celebrating preparedness with you!

Protect yourself and your community this month: Get your vax!

It’s back-to-school season! Time to stock up on supplies: New notebooks, pencils, a calculator and perhaps the all-important “cootie shot.”

We kid! We know a cootie shot isn’t real. But this month is a great time to catch up on real vaccinations. It’s National Immunization Awareness Month! This month is held every August. It outlines just how important it is for everyone to stay up-to-date on vaccinations

Vaccines are safe and easy ways to help prevent the spread of some scary diseases. They protect the people who receive them, and they also protect people around them. This is called herd immunity. It helps to keep people who can’t get vaccinated from getting sick. Such people include those with weak immune systems, pregnant people and infants.

We think about getting vaccines as babies, or for students returning to school. But everyone needs certain vaccinations, no matter how old they are. National Immunization Awareness Month breaks this down by week and age. Get Ready has lots of information on how important vaccines are for everyone. Check out information for kids, teens and adults.

With flu season vaccine finder tool from HealthMap.

just around the corner, now is a great time to talk to your health care provider about which vaccines you might need. Not sure where to go for vaccines? Check out this

Hop to it! National Immunization Awareness Month is almost over, but it’s never a bad time to make a quick investment in your health that will pay off for months and years to come.

Are you ready for an earthquake? New infographic can help keep you safe

It’s a beautiful day and you’re leaving your home for the day.

Suddenly, the ground starts to shake: It’s an earthquake! Do you know what to do?

Earthquakes are more common than you think. And they don’t just happen on the West Coast. Globally, there are 500,000 detectable earthquakes every year, the U.S. Geological Survey says. Only about 100,000 of those can be felt, and 100 cause damage.

Though you may not have heard about them in the news, there were earthquakes in California, Greece, Peru, Russia and other countries in the past month. People in Oklahoma experienced seven earthquakes in 28 hours in early August, causing power outages.

With so many earthquakes, it’s important to know what to do beforehand. Which is why our new Get Ready infographic is so handy.

It tells you what to do before, during and after an earthquake. The infographic is great for hanging on your bulletin board or the fridge at home, work or school.

Learn more about preparing for earthquakes with Get Ready’s earthquake fact sheet and check out our other awesome preparedness infographics.

Remember, earthquakes can strike at any time, so be prepared to drop, cover and hold on!

Foodborne illness: Spend your summer outdoors, not in the bathroom

Summertime means fun in the sun, but it can also bring foodborne illness. (Blech!) No one wants to spend their summer with an upset stomach — or worse. So what can you do to prevent it?

In our latest podcast, the Get Ready team interviews Glenn Morris, director of the Emerging Pathogens Institute at the University of Florida, to find out.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that about 1 in 6 Americans is affected by foodborne illness each year, adding up to roughly 48 million people. Unfortunately, warm summer weather can make it easier for germs to flourish in your food.

“When bacteria are hot, they grow,” Morris says. “And when they grow, they increase the likelihood that they are going to be able to increase illness.”

If you’re planning to have a picnic or family cookout this summer, Morris recommends that you use two separate cutting boards for food prep. You’ll want one for raw food and one for cooked foods and produce, so germs don’t spread. Also, don’t forget to wash your hands!

“This seems very basic,” Morris said. “But a lot of the pathogens that can get onto or into foods are carried by hands. So always wash your hands before you prepare food.

Other tips? Make sure to keep hot foods hot and cold foods cold. And ensure that your meats are cooked to a safe temperature. That means that all hamburger meat should be cooked to at least 160 degrees Fahrenheit and chicken cooked to at least 165 degrees.

Morris also shares information on the difference between a medium-rare steak and a medium-rare hamburger. Why is one OK to eat while the other is not? Listen to this episode of our Get Ready Report to find out!

The Get Ready Report can be found for free on any podcast app on your smartphone, including iTunes, so subscribe now to get updates on our latest episodes.