The threat of biological weapons poses unique challenges for government officials charged with devising immediate and longer-term response plans. RAND has developed exercises to train and evaluate the preparedness of state and local public health agencies to respond to bioterrorism. RAND researchers have also examined the longer-term psychological consequences of bioterrorism and created guidelines to improve individual preparedness for chemical, radiological, nuclear, and biological attacks.
COMMENTARY
To assure the health security of the United States, we must be capable of stopping anything a terrorist or Mother Nature might throw at us. Wholesale cuts to public health are taking us farther from that goal, write Art Kellermann and Melinda Moore.
REPORT
Presents tools for assessing state/local health departments' capability to rapidly deliver medical countermeasures in response to a public health emergency; provides a framework for determining which elements of the capability to assess; describes procedures for the five assessments developed; summarizes methods and findings from field tests; and identifies next steps and policy implications.
RESEARCH BRIEF
This research highlight summarizes the findings of RAND's initial evaluation of the Cities Readiness Initiative and the program's impact on communities' readiness to conduct mass dispensing of medications and other medical supplies.
NEWS RELEASE
A federal program designed to help metropolitan public health agencies prepare to deliver essential medicines to the public after a large-scale bioterror attack or natural disease outbreak has succeeded in improving the level of readiness.
RESEARCH BRIEF
This fact sheet describes tabletop exercises in six Georgia health districts and at the state level to understand what coordination and public health response are required among groups with diverse responsibilities and at different government levels.
JOURNAL ARTICLE
An exercise in responding to agricultural bioterrorism examined the intentional introduction of avian influenza in commercial poultry operations during a severe human influenza season. The scenario enabled exploration of a range of issues associated with public health preparedness for major disease outbreaks.
NEWS RELEASE
April 5, 2007 news release: RAND Panel Identifies Key Components of Public Health Emergency Preparedness.
REPORT
Testimony presented before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, Subcommittee on Bioterrorism and Public Health Preparedness on March 28, 2006.
JOURNAL ARTICLE
The goals of this chapter are (1) to introduce the statistical issues in syndromic surveillance, (2) to describe and illustrate approaches to evaluating syndromic surveillance systems and characterizing their performance, and (3) to evaluate the performance of a couple of specific algorithms through both abstract simulations and simulations based on actual data.
REPORT
An evaluation of the pilot year of Project Public Health Ready (PHR), which aims to prepare local public health agencies to respond to bioterrorism and to protect the public’s health-this report delineates PHR benefits and challenges. The program is voluntary and participants receive recognition for their efforts. Overall, PHR deadlines and requirements led agencies to become prepared earlier than if they had not participated in the…
REPORT
In 2003, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Assistant Secretary for Public Health Emergency Preparedness contracted the RAND Corporation to develop and test tabletop exercises on early local public health agency (LPHA) responses to outbreaks caused by bioterrorism. RAND developed the exercises in this manual as templates that LPHAs can customize and use to train public health workers in detecting and responding…
JOURNAL ARTICLE
Public health officials have been quick to adopt this new tool for identifying emerging problems, but research is needed to assess its effectiveness.
JOURNAL ARTICLE
Discusses the Impact of a major act of agricultural bio-terrorism in the United States.
JOURNAL ARTICLE
The purpose of this study was to review instruments that assess the level of preparedness of state and local public health departments to respond to health threats such as bioterrorism.
JOURNAL ARTICLE
This paper examines primary care physicians' (PCP) roles in helping the nation prepare for, respond to, and recover from the psychologic consequences of chemical, biologic, radiologic, or nuclear (CBRN) terrorism.
COMMENTARY
Published commentary by RAND staff.
RESEARCH BRIEF
The RAND Corporation interviewed a diverse sample of individuals from Capitol Hill and from the Brentwood postal facility with the purpose of understanding in detail how these individuals responded to the advice of public health officials to take antibiotics for at least 60 days.
RESEARCH BRIEF
A severe public health crisis could require onerous or controversial control measures whose success will depend on the extent to which everyone cooperates.
RESEARCH BRIEF
Key findings: --The level of bioterrorism preparedness across California's jurisdictions is uneven, ranging from excellent to poor. --There are wide variations in every aspect of preparedness strategy, development, and implementation. --The system su...
RESEARCH BRIEF
To aid the early detection of bioterror events, public health officials and researchers have developed a new method called syndromic surveillance.
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