About

Public health emergencies—including disease outbreaks like COVID-19, natural disasters, and severe weather—can disproportionately affect older adults, particularly those with complex needs. Community-serving organizations provide a wide range of services and support for older adults. They play a valuable role in helping older adults and their caregivers prepare for emergencies, and get the services and supports they need to recover. 

The CDC Foundation, with technical assistance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), funded NORC at the University of Chicago to study the needs and concerns of older adults and their caregivers during public health emergencies. NORC’s research led to the development of Search. Find. Help., which includes approximately 300 programs and resources. Findings from this project were also synthesized into a final report (appendices; intervention tables); an executive summary; a caregiver infographic highlighting key findings; and a caregiver one-pager of resources, available in English and Spanish.

The purpose of Search. Find. Help. is to help organizational leaders and staff find resources they can use to support older adults and caregivers during public health emergencies. These resources include interventions, policies, programs, and strategies addressing social isolation, managing chronic conditions, elder abuse and neglect, caregiver support, delayed medical care, and emergency preparedness. Many of the resources included on this site are designed for public health emergencies; others have been adapted for or are applicable to outbreaks such as COVID-19 (for example, because they are available remotely). 

Search. Find. Help. also provides a short implementation guide—Helping Communities during Public Health Emergencies: An Action Plan for Organizations. This guide supports organizations in assessing the community’s needs, selecting interventions, determine adaptations to make the intervention responsive to their specific population or community context, implementing the intervention, and evaluating its effectiveness.

Explore Search. Find. Help. today to find resources to best meet the needs of your community. 

If you want to learn more about this site, please visit the FAQ page and view our webinar from November 18, 2021 below.