Every nation has an obligation to protect essential government, financial, energy, transportation, and other critical infrastructure operations against terrorist activities and natural disasters. RAND addresses homeland security and critical infrastructure needs through objective research that assists national, state, and local agencies in preventing and mitigating terrorist activities, as well as in improving disaster preparedness, response, and recovery.
Commentary
The federal government has spent about $140 billion responding to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and the Gulf Coast now needs more money for hurricane and flood protection and for coastal restoration. But we still haven't properly evaluated whether our money was spent wisely, writes Melissa Flournoy.
News Release
Because it will be difficult to prevent cyber attacks on critical civilian and military computer networks by threatening to punish attackers, the United States must focus its efforts on defending these networks from cyber attack.
Report
Changing emergency planning rules to make nongovernmental organizations a key component of recovery efforts could get them involved earlier and speed the full recovery of communities after disaster strikes.
Past Event
Senior political scientist Christopher Nelson and operations researcher Edward Chan will discuss RAND's evaluation of federal efforts to improve public health preparedness in the nation's largest metropolitan areas in The H1N1 Pandemic: Lessons Learned from the Cities Readiness Initiative on September 14, 2009.
Multimedia
In this Congressional Briefing held on September 14, 2009, researchers Christopher Nelson and Edward Chan discuss RAND's recently published evaluation of the Cities Readiness Initiative, which helps the nation's largest metropolitan areas develop the ability to rapidly deliver life-saving medications and other medical supplies to their populations. The study has implications for pandemic influenza and other federal public health preparedness programs.
Report
U.S. international energy-assistance programs, a potentially important tool for reducing global greenhouse gas emissions and increasing energy security, are reviewed and compared with German programs; recommendations are made for further study.
Tool
Presents a toolkit and a Web-based Geographic Information Systems tool meant to help state and local public health agencies improve their emergency preparedness activities for special needs populations.
Report
Presents assessments that test five critical elements of state and local health departments' capability to deliver countermeasures to the population under rapid timeframes.
Report
Describes a tool for assessing key features of good crisis decision making that focuses on the processes of decision making -- situational awareness, action planning, and process control -- and can be used for exploratory analysis and process improvement.
Report
Improving public health emergency preparedness tops the national agenda but has been hindered by the lack of real-world situations to learn from. The Federal Government, therefore, asked RAND to facilitate the development of a research agenda that would expand the evidence base upon which preparedness policies are based.
Research Brief
Presents an assessment of how effectively state and local health departments communicated information regarding the April 2009 H1N1 virus (swine flu) outbreak via the Web to their constituents.
Report
One under-examined area of public health emergency preparedness concerns incidents involving the release of chemical or radiological substances, which can have serious public health consequences. This report focuses on the roles of the public health service in emergency preparedness and its response to such incidents.
Report
Policymakers need to develop a fuller understanding of how multinational corporations are shaping zones of violent conflict.
Journal Article
State and local health departments get mixed marks for efforts to convey information about the H1N1 virus to the public using their Web sites immediately after U.S. officials declared a public health emergency in April.
Past Event
K. Jack Riley, associate director of the RAND National Security Research Division, will discuss the dire security situation in Mexico, and implications and options for the U.S.
Project
The Special Needs Populations Mapping tool can help public health agencies develop appropriate strategies for incorporating special needs populations into public health preparedness and response planning.
News Release
The long-term efficiency and effectiveness of the U.S. freight transportation system is threatened by bottlenecks, inefficient use of some parts of the infrastructure components, vulnerability to disruptions, and crucial environmental and energy concerns.
Past Event
This RAND Supply Chain Policy Center Symposium on Modernizing the U.S. Freight Transportation System for Future Economic Growth will present recent findings on supply chain sustainability, and will offer several promising policy and investment alternatives to address identified challenges.
Report
Describes approaches to modernizing the U.S. freight-transportation system that require whole-system modeling, engagement of all stakeholders, and an understanding of the interdependence between local and national costs and benefits.
Report
One way that U.S. households are coping with the global economic downturn is by reaching out to each other via financial help, according to recent survey results, which also reveal that many more households are giving financial help than receiving it and that help most frequently flows from parents to children.
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