Overview of RRVC

State and local agencies are responsible for public health and safety during radiological incidents. The National Response Framework has identified population monitoring, among other duties, as a local and state responsibility. In the event of a major radiological incident, state and local radiation control and emergency response program resources would be quickly overwhelmed by the large number of citizens needing evaluation for contamination. One method of supplementing state and local public health resources is through use of local volunteer radiation professionals who could provide assistance at community reception centers, shelters for displaced populations, emergency operations centers, hospitals, and communications facilities. There are tens of thousands of radiation professionals across the country, living and working in nearly every community, who could volunteer to assist their local and state public health and emergency management authorities in the event of a large nuclear/radiological incident. The infrastructure for such a volunteer effort exists in the Medical Reserve Corps (MRC). There are currently about 717 MRC units in operation with approximately 268,000 trained volunteer members including active and retired physicians, nurses, and public health professionals as well as other types of volunteers. The MRC program (https://aspr.hhs.gov/mrc/Pages/index.aspx ) has proven to be a valuable asset in local public health preparedness for pandemic influenza and for assisting in operation of Points of Dispensing sites for the purpose of distributing Strategic National Stockpile assets.

In 2011 the Conference of Radiation Control Program Directors (CRCPD) sponsored a pilot program with seven localities which resulted in the creation of the Radiation Response Volunteer Corps (RRVC).  The RRVCs were charged with developing a process for identifying, recruiting, training and using radiation volunteers to enhance radiological preparedness capabilities to support population monitoring activities.  The information collected during the pilot program was used to identify and catalog best practices that could be replicated by other states and localities.

In 2025 CRCPD established a task force to assess the status of existing RRVC programs, reinvigorate programs that had gone dormant and promote the creation of new RRVCs. A survey indicated that there are currently ### active RRVCs. To further support existing RRVCs, the task force engaged with the State Radiological Operations Support Specialists (ROSS) Coordinators to brief them on the program and to solicit their engagement in this effort.  Additionally, the task force reviewed and updated existing materials developed during the 2011 pilot and organized them in this toolkit. Lastly, the task force collaborated with ChainBridge to be able to use MissionEdge for volunteer tracking.