PHapp at Preparedness Summit 2025 & National Preparedness Month Campaign Launch

PHapp was released to the public on Apr 2, 2025 as a downloadable app and a web app. It was announced at the Preparedness Summit in San Antonio on Apr 28, 2025.

It was also accompanied by a joint-presentation by Kacey Ernst, MPH, PhD Department Chair & Professor Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the College of Public Health at the University of Arizona and Sameer Halai, the CEO of Wehealth on the topic of AI Safety - Scaling human expertise to deliver enhanced public health alerts that increase user engagement and improve recovery which was streamed live. 

We also announced the National Preparedness Month Campaign at the summit for public agencies to equip their community with life-saving preparedness resources to be delivered via the PHapp. Our year-long initiative supports public agencies in promoting emergency readiness, aligned with Ready.gov.

About the 2025 Conference Theme

Recovery is an important but often overlooked phase in the disaster life cycle that begins immediately after the threat to human life has subsided. We, as a community, must take time to be intentional about recovery to learn from our experiences and improve preparedness and response capacity into the future. This is particularly timely in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and amidst the cascading challenges of environmental disasters. 
 
Now is our opportunity to ask questions and develop answers as we consider roles and responsibilities, and resources needed to undertake the crucial step of recovery. What does recovery look like for individuals, systems, organizations, and the community? How do we ensure equity in all aspects of recovery? How do we strengthen relationships across sectors to work together in recovery? How do we ensure our workforce is part of a recovery plan? How does recovery impact how we prepare for and respond to the next event? 
 
The theme of the 2025 Preparedness Summit, “Pathways to Recovery in the Aftermath of Disasters,” will provide an opportunity to explore these and many other questions as we share experiences, learn, and collaborate across the public health, emergency management, and healthcare sectors. By taking the time to consider and incorporate into our work the many facets of recovery, we can truly build resilience with our communities in the short- and long-term.