Civil defense comprises activities designed to minimize the effects of war on the civilian population, deal with immediate emergency conditions, and quickly restore vital utilities and facilities damaged in an attack. RAND research assists national, state, and local agencies in preventing and mitigating terrorist activities; improving civil defense preparedness, response, and recovery actions; and understanding critical infrastructure needs.
Research conducted by:
Homeland Security and Defense Center;
RAND National Security Research Division;
RAND Project AIR FORCE;
RAND Arroyo Center
Journal Articles (9)
This study suggests four timely US actions to address today's competing realities of globalization and economic austerity: raise awareness among clinicians and local health departments; capture and share exemplary disaster management practices across countries; ensure that US global health investments are effective, efficient, and sustainable; and think globally while acting locally to enhance US health security.
Most local public health officials rely on their perceptions of the legal environment in which they operate, but those perceptions often do not match the actual laws enacted.
Describes the importance of a Continuity of Operations Plan (COOP), and identifies common strengths and potential vulnerabilities of laboratory-specific COOPs.
Organizational culture differences between public health and emergency management entities may hinder inter-agency collaboration.
Review of what scientists and scholars know about WMD terrorism and America's options for confronting it.
In this article, the authors argue that initial funding priorities for public health systems research on preparedness should focus on using engineering-style methods to identify core preparedness processes, developing novel data sources and measures based on smaller-scale proxy events, and developing performance improvement approaches to support the translation of research into practice within the wide variety of public health systems found in the nation.
Policymakers failed to consider whether US notions about internal security were appropriate for fractious and unstable regions of the world.