First responders—including police, paramedics, firefighters, and public health agencies—must react to all manner of emergencies, from terrorism to natural disasters. RAND research supports private-sector and government agencies at the federal, state, and local levels that are charged with responding to, mitigating the effects of, and recovering from natural disasters, acts of terrorism, and other emergencies.
REPORT
The Cities Readiness Initiative (CRI) aims to improve communities' ability to rapidly provide life-saving medications during public health emergencies. The authors examine (1) the status of communities' operational capability to meet the goal of delivering medical countermeasures within 48 hours of a federal decision to deploy assets and (2) whether there is evidence that CRI has improved communities' capability to meet that goal.
MULTIMEDIA
Admiral Thad Allen, then a senior fellow at RAND, presented “Managing the Unexpected” on April 19, 2011, as part of RAND's Issues in Focus public outreach series. Retired Commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard and National Incident Commander for the response to the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Allen discussed his experiences leading the nation's high-profile response to two national emergencies—the oil spill and Hurricane Katrina.
JOURNAL ARTICLE
This study combines a text analysis of 70 after action reports (AARs) with a failure mode effects and consequences analysis (FMECA). This approach provides a mechanism to connect the AAR process with efforts to improve emergency response planning.
JOURNAL ARTICLE
The capabilities and capacities for response are the product of a system of plans, authorities, policies,procedures, personnel, training, materials, equipment and facilities to address post-incident needs.
REPORT
This report describes a method for modeling an emergency response system; identifying how individual parts of the system might fail; and assessing the likelihood of each failure and the severity of its effects on the overall response effort.
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.
NEWS RELEASE
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.
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.
JOURNAL ARTICLE
This study found little temporal relationship between the demand for ED resources and that for inpatient services. A multivariate modeling approach provided a more accurate forecast of ED demand and the demand for inpatient services.
REPORT
The Mumbai terrorist attacks in India suggest the possibility of an escalating terrorist campaign in South Asia and the rise of a strategic terrorist culture. This report identifies the operational and tactical features of the attack, evaluates the response of Indian security forces, and analyzes the implications for the region and the U.S.
REPORT
Mounting an effective emergency response to a public health threat, such as a pandemic influenza, is a common challenge of state and local public health agencies across the country. The PREPARE toolkit provides a brief tutorial on using quality improvement methods to build agency capabilities and public health emergency preparedness.
COMMENTARY
In his campaign, President-elect Barack Obama pledged to rebuild the Gulf Coast — one of the country's most wounded, yet economically strategic, regions. To keep this laudable promise, he will need to make a sustained commitment not only to a national disaster recovery plan, but also a comprehensive economic development strategy for the Gulf Coast, writes Melissa Flournoy.
RESEARCH BRIEF
Framing of a broad set of questions about how national preparedness can be meaningfully evaluated, this policy brief introduces an alternative way of thinking about measuring emergency preparedness.
REPORT
Decisionmakers today largely assess emergency preparedness and homeland security "in the rear view mirror," looking at performance in actual events and responding to perceived failures. While real-world experience is important, better ways to assess preparedness prospectively will lead to better choices as to how and where to strengthen it.
REPORT
In order to ensure that the U.S. government is able to dispense antibiotics and other life-saving medical countermeasures to large populations under short timelines in the case of a large-scale public health emergency, this report recommends standards for points of dispensing that are designed to apply to widely divergent jurisdictions.
MULTIMEDIA
Individual preparedness is an important element of our nation's strategy for homeland security. Lynn E. Davis examines a scenario-driven approach that provides a rigorous way to identify actions-linked specifically to terrorist attacks-individuals can take to protect their health and safety.
REPORT
New training manuals provide a curricula that can be used to train hospital and clinic staff as well as department of mental health staff on how to prepare for and respond to the psychological consequences of large-scale disasters.
JOURNAL ARTICLE
Residents who have been displaced by the wildfires may experience serious mental health problems. Up to one-third of the residents displaced by the San Diego area fires in 2003 showed symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder and major depression three months later.
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