Regional Emergency Coordinators

Regional Emergency Coordinators (RECs) serve as ASPR’s primary representatives throughout the country at the regional level. Building relationships with federal, state, local, tribal and territorial officials and healthcare representatives (partners and stakeholders) in order to conduct planning for effective federal emergency response, and to facilitate coordinated preparedness and response activities for public health and medical emergencies, is the main role of the RECs.  This is accomplished in a variety of ways to include: enhancing cross discipline integration among public health and medical and emergency management partners; providing situational awareness to headquarters;  responding  to events and providing command and control for deployed Departmental resources and assets; and providing exercise support  to stakeholders.  

The Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) and its predecessor organizations have placed emergency coordinators in each of the Health and Human Services (HHS) regions for over 15 years.  Today, there are RECs throughout the country, and each region has its own unique regional preparedness concerns. With a wide variety of backgrounds including healthcare, emergency management, environmental health, public administration, human services, public health, and engineering, the RECs offer a wealth of skills and experience in emergency planning and response. For more information about the program, please contact us via the Regional Emergency Coordinators Comment Form.