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As of July 1, 2025, Idaho law requires CDH to verify the lawful presence of those applying for public benefits through our agency.

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As of July 1, 2025, Idaho law requires CDH to verify the lawful presence of those applying for public benefits through our agency.

The programs impacted by this change are:
  • WIC applicants who are not on Medicaid, SNAP, or TAFI
  • Clinic services for which a sliding scale is used
  • Licenses and permits for food establishments
  • Licenses and permits for septic onsite, pumper and installer services

You can review the policy here and then complete the form below to verify your lawful presence online or you can visit one of our CDH offices to confirm in person.

Lawful Presence Online Forms: English | Spanish

WIC: English | Spanish

Support Programs

Public Health Preparedness

CDH’s Public Health Preparedness team helps plan for, respond to, and recover from public health emergencies in Ada, Boise, Elmore, and Valley counties.

Contact

Call us to learn more: 208-327-8514

Our simple disaster planning steps can help you prevent disease and injury during an emergency.

  • Protect yourself against everyday health hazards such as excessive summer heat, freezing winter temperatures, influenza, and West Nile virus.
  • Learn more about the threats currently facing your community and our nation.
  • Be informed of how your community is preparing and find ways to help.

Community Preparedness Trainings

Education and training play a vital role in preparing for public health emergencies and disasters. By training and exercising for potential events, we can continuously improve our ability to respond effectively.

CDH’s training and education activities include practicing our Emergency Operations Plan, collaborating with Medical Reserve Corps Volunteers and regional partners and participating in community outreach.

Our Public Health Preparedness Program utilizes training resources from several expert organizations to enhance our ability to respond. Examples of these agencies include:

Stop the Bleed Training

The Stop the Bleed Initiative is intended to deliver training to internal staff, external partners and community members. Training participants will learn to identify life-threatening bleeding, respond immediately using compression techniques and alert emergency dispatch effectively.

Stop the Bleed training improves community preparedness and empowers citizens to continue education in their own network. It is managed by our Public Health Preparedness Training & Exercise Coordinator and supported a cadre of instructors and the CDH Risk Management Committee.

Training courses are held on a quarterly basis based on the number of enrolled participants. Community members can sign up to attend a session and organizations can request on-site training using the Stop the Bleed Request Form.

Are you an instructor in need of a kit? Reach out to PHP to learn more about borrowing an instructor kit from the agency.

Medical Reserve Corps

Becoming a Medical Reserve Corps (MRC) Volunteer is easy, just visit www.volunteeridaho.org to register. You do not need to be a US citizen to be part of the MRC.

The MRC is made up of community members with and without medical training, as well as public health professionals. Everyone possesses valuable skills that contribute to the day-to-day operations of the local public health department and during times of community need. CDH’s Medical Reserve Corps program serves Ada, Boise, Elmore, and Valley Counties.

You can join the CDH-MRC team and volunteer as frequently as you like or solely be available in the event of a public health emergency or disaster.

  • Typically, MRC members contribute their time and talents during an emergency or throughout the year by participating in our preparedness training and exercises.
  • CDH reserves the right to place volunteers where the need is greatest. We will make every attempt to place volunteers in area that capitalizes on their skills and abilities.

Duties

  • Supplement existing emergency and public health resources.
  • Include medical and public health professionals such as physicians, nurses, pharmacists, dentists, veterinarians, and epidemiologists. Many community members-interpreters, chaplains, office workers, legal advisors, and others can fill key support positions.
  • Strive to increase disease prevention, eliminate health disparities, and improve public health preparedness.
  • Offer education and prevention services to improve the public health infrastructure of their neighborhoods and communities.

Skills

  • How to protect the health, safety, and overall well-being of themselves, their families, the team, and the community.
  • How to develop a personal and family preparedness plan.
  • MRC unit’s role in public health and/or emergency response and its application to a given incident.
  • How to follow procedures for assignment, activation, reporting, and deactivation.

Training

The training focus is on support skills training, primary emergency response procedures, and an introduction to the Incident Command System (ICS100 and IS700). All MRC volunteers also undergo an orientation to the program which includes an in-depth look at our emergency response role and how we fit in to the overall public health plan. As often as possible, we provide other training, completely free of charge, to MRC members such as Psychological First Aid, Public Health 101–the Basics, Family Disaster Preparedness, among others.

About

The MRC program was formed in 2002. Recruiting, training, and organizing medical and public health professionals to strengthen their communities through volunteerism are at the core of the MRC concept. MRC volunteers offer their expertise throughout the year by supporting local public health initiatives, such as immunization and other public health activities. When a community-wide public health emergency occurs, MRC volunteers work in coordination with existing local emergency response plans.

Volunteers are the very heart of the MRC. The existence of this nationwide, community-based program is due to the willingness of volunteer medical and non-medical members of the community to serve their fellow residents in times of need.

Resources

CDH’s Public Health Preparedness is charged with planning for, responding to, and recovering from public health emergencies in Ada, Boise, Elmore, and Valley counties and helping our communities and families be prepared for just such an event. Our simple disaster planning steps can help you prevent disease and injury during an emergency.

Emergency Operations

CDH Emergency Operations Plan (EOP), supporting annexes, and supporting stand-alone plans detail our response to natural or manmade disaster, communicable disease outbreak or other public health emergencies. CDH has integrated the National Incident Management System (NIMS) and the Incident Command System (ICS) in our planning, training and exercising efforts.

Cities Readiness Initiative

Cities Readiness Initiative (CRI) is a federally funded program that enhances preparedness in the nation’s largest population centers, where nearly 60% of the population resides. The program prepares areas to effectively respond to large public health emergencies with life-saving medicines and medical supplies.

State and large metropolitan public health departments use CRI funding to develop, test, and maintain emergency response plans. These plans detail how health departments will quickly receive medical counter measures from the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) and distribute them to local communities.

SNS is the nation’s largest supply of medical countermeasures for use in a public health emergency severe enough to deplete local supplies.

Continuity of Operations

Also referred to as Business Continuity Planning, COOP Planning attempts to mitigate the lasting impact and interruption to business practice resulting from a catastrophic event or disaster, including flood, earthquake, and pandemic influenza.

While many Federal and State agencies are focused on developing plans for COOP and Continuity of Government (COG), Central District Health would like to encourage our local business partners to address their own COOP processes to ensure their ability to continue to provide goods and services to our communities in disaster situations. Below are some suggested sources of information to aid in this process.

Home Emergency Preparation

  • DHS – Family Disaster Plan – To prepare yourself and your family by creating an all-hazards disaster preparedness kit.
  • DHS – Prepare a Disaster Supplies Kit – Assemble supplies you might need in an evacuation or if you are confined to your home and store them in an easy-to-carry container, such as a backpack or duffle bag.
  • NWS – Extreme Cold – Learn how to prepare for winter storms, prevent cold temperature-related health problems and protect yourself during all stages of a winter storm with this guide.
  • YouTube – Are you Red Cross Ready – Oregon School for the Deaf (OSD) created this video in American Sign Language (ASL) to help the American Red Cross Willamette Chapter in Salem, Oregon reach more people in the community.
  • CDC – Emergency Preparedness and Disability Inclusion – Web portal dedicated to disability inclusion in emergency preparedness and response efforts. Developed in collaboration with partners and members of the disability community, this web portal serves as a resource hub on all-hazards preparedness to support people with disabilities. This information can help people with disabilities consider steps they can take to plan ahead for emergencies and know what to do if an emergency happens in their communities.

Additional Links