Featured Research
This page features research conducted by RAND Health research staff that has been published in a scholarly journal.Conceptualizing and Defining Public Health Emergency Preparedness
Nelson C, Lurie N, Wasserman J, Zakowski S American Journal of Public Health, Vol. 8, No. 4, Dec 2006, pp. 449-471
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Because this is an editorial, the first few paragraphs will be supplied rather than an abstract.
Editorial
Since September 11, 2001, and the anthrax attacks that followed, a substantial federal investment – totaling well in excess of $5 billion – has been made to increase our nation's ability to prepare for, and respond to, public health emergencies. Yet despite anecdotal reports suggesting that progress has been made, it is unclear whether these investments have left the nation better prepared to respond to a bio-terrorist attack, pandemic influenza, or any other large-scale public health emergency.
This situation is not because of a shortage of measures of preparedness. Over the past 5 years, federal agencies, state health departments, and various non-governmental organizations have proposed and implemented myriad measures of public health emergency preparedness. But these efforts have not resulted in a clear picture of the nation's preparedness owing to ambiguous and uncertain preparedness goals, a lack of agreement about what the measures should aim at and how they should be interpreted, and a weak system of accountability for producing results. Measures often vary considerably across agencies and shift dramatically from year to year, leaving state and local health officials, businesses, non-profits, and citizens confused and perplexed by a maze of overlapping and sometimes contradictory requirements, checklists, and ideas about what constitutes preparedness.
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