The USA Center for Rural Public Health Preparedness is based at the Texas A&M Health Science Center School of Rural Public Health (HSC-SPRH) in College Station, Texas.  The USA Center seeks to focus on public health issues that are particularly relevant to preparedness in rural America.

Funding for USA Center activities presently comes from state and local partners, as well as through a grant provided by the CDC as part of the Centers for Public Health Preparedness program.

The mission of the Center is to work with both internal and external partners to promote the development of skills and competencies that support the nine CDC goals for emergency response and preparedness in primarily rural states and rural sections of the country.

The goals of the Center are three-fold:

• Strengthen the public health workforce readiness in predominantly rural and underserved areas through implementation of programs for life-long learning
• Strengthen capacity at State and local levels for a rural preparedness and emergency public health response; and
• Strengthen the network of academic-based programs contributing to national terrorism preparedness and emergency response capacity.

The objectives of the Center are:

• Develop and deliver training and exercise opportunities that demonstrate multi-disciplinary response at the state and local levels;
• Provide training opportunities that build upon participants’ preparedness response job functions;
• Construct a plan for achieving identified preparedness competencies for partner states; and
• Share rural expertise and resources across state and local jurisdictions.