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Health Resource Package: Biological and Chemical Terrorism

 

Congress Asks . . .

Are Local Health Responders Ready for Biological and Chemical Terrorism?

RAND Health Research

A RAND survey conducted prior to September 11, 2001, indicates that our nation's public health infrastructure is ill prepared at the local level to respond to threats of biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

• Only about one-third of local public health departments and hospitals have plans or standard operating procedures to respond to biological incidents, although hospitals were more likely to have plans or standard operating procedures to respond to chemical incidents.
• Few interagency task forces address planning for incidents involving WMD, with survey respondents indicating that the public health and medical communities are not well integrated with the planning activities of other local emergency responders.
• In general, though, large metropolitan counties appear to be better prepared for biological or chemical terrorism than other counties.

Local planning for dealing with biological and chemical attacks needs to be strengthened.

• There is a lack of integration between the public health response and the preparedness activities of other emergency responders, particularly in the area of bioterrorism.
• Much of the focus to date has been on capacity building of our nation's public health system.
• A 2002 federal bioterrorism appropriation represents a critical opportunity to improve planning at the state and local levels.
• To respond effectively to these emerging threats, local planning must go beyond capacity building and education to enhance preparedness by focusing on integrated planning and exercises and improved communication among health responders and other emergency responders.

References

This fact sheet is based on an Issue Paper prepared by researchers at RAND:

Davis LM, Blanchard JC. "Are Local Health Responders Ready for Biological and Chemical Terrorism?" 2002; RAND IP-221-OSD (HTML or print-friendly version).

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For more information, contact Shirley Ruhe at (703) 413-1100, extension 5632, or by email at ruhe@rand.org.