A national agenda for public health systems research on emergency preparedness

Abstract

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Building a National Model of Public Mental Health Preparedness and Community Resilience: Validation of a Dual-Intervention, Systems-Based Approach

“…The project is consistent with calls for systems-based research to build an evidence base for public health policy and practice, [53][54][55] particularly to apply systems research to the field of emergency preparedness. 56 Our approach also aligns with the aims of numerous federal mandates, directives, and standards, examples of which include:…”

Federal Initiative Increases Community Preparedness For Public Health Emergencies

“…Policy makers and citizens should keep in mind that public health preparedness is in many ways a new enterprise, and ongoing work is needed to evaluate new approaches and build the developing evidence base. 15,16 ▪ Performance measurement and accountability are likely to be a Pyrrhic victory if communities lack the tools to close performance gaps.…”

Public Health Response Systems In-Action: Learning from Local Health Departments’ Experiences with Acute and Emergency Incidents

“…Public health departments were ten times more likely to serve in a lead role for infectious disease events compared to events involving severe weather. Recognizing these response patterns can have an impact on planning and exercising with partner agencies, particularly with respect to setting expectations and developing a mutual understanding about the roles and responsibilities of public health agencies in various situations, an issue that has repeatedly been recognized as an area needing improvement [3,32].…”

“…There is still little agreement on how to measure, let alone improve, public health response performance [3,4]. A number of challenges have been cited as barriers to research advancement in this field, including: the infrequent nature of large-scale public health emergencies [3,[5][6][7], the heterogeneity of emergency events and of public health delivery structures [3,6], the challenges with access to incident leadership during real-world emergencies [7], the limited ability for standardized surveys to measure complex agency and system processes [6], and the difficulty of identifying a comparison group or constructing a counterfactual of what might have occurred if particular public health interventions had not taken place [8,9]. As a result, outside of statistical modeling, researchers have often been limited in their use of statistical methods to test hypotheses, reach generalizable conclusions, and isolate factors that are likely to have the greatest impact on response capacity [8,10].…”

“…What is known about public health emergency response is largely derived from simulated emergencies (e.g. exercises or drills), with a primary focus on bioterrorism or pandemic influenza [3]. By relying on an evidence base that draws from a narrow set of threats, we run the risk of overemphasizing the capabilities and resources required for those incidents while neglecting those that may be essential in other scenarios [11].…”