The world’s largest outbreak of Ebola virus disease began in West Africa in 2014. Although few cases were identified in the United States, the possibility of imported cases led US public health systems and health care facilities to focus on preparing the health care system to quickly and safely identify and respond to emerging infectious diseases. In New York City, early, coordinated planning a...

BACKGROUND Prior experience and the persisting threat of influenza pandemic indicate the need for global and local preparedness and public health response capacity. The pandemic of 2009 highlighted the importance of such planning and the value of prior efforts at all levels. Our review of the public health response to this pandemic in Pune, India, considers the challenges of integrating global ...

47 Introduction This paper is one of the four interrelated action agenda papers resulting from the National Summit on Public Health Legal Preparedness (Summit) convened in June 2007 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and multi-disciplinary partners. Each of the action agenda papers deals with one of the four core elements of legal preparedness: laws and legal authorities; compete...

In anticipation of future terrorist attacks, the nation has been focused on emergency preparedness, including threats to public health and the ability of communities to respond to them. The Center for Studying Health System Change's (HSC) recent site visits to 12 nationally representative communities found early benefits to public health due to heightened attention to bioterrorism preparedness:...

Responding to agricultural bioterrorism with pathogenic agents that are communicable from animals to humans (zoonotic diseases) requires effective coordination of many organizations, both inside and outside of government. Action must be simultaneously taken to address public health concerns, respond to the agricultural dimensions of the event, and carry out the necessary law enforcement investi...

A rlene King is an accomplished public health leader. This includes serving as Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer of Health (CMOH) from 2009–2014. Prior to that, she was Director General for Pandemic Preparedness and later Director General for a new Centre for Immunization and Respiratory Infectious Diseases with the Public Health Agency of Canada. In the 1990s, Dr. King was a Medical Officer of H...

Information intermediaries play a critical role in information supply chains for emergency preparedness. Yet, their responsibilities have not been adequately examined in the literature. Using a state public health department as an exemplar, we explore the roles and challenges experienced by one intermediary organization as it faced the unique challenges of deploying a public health emergency pr...

OBJECTIVE To document the ability of public health laboratories to respond to radiological emergencies. METHODS The Association of Public Health Laboratories developed, distributed, and analyzed two separate surveys of public health laboratories representing the 50 US states and major nonstate jurisdictions. The 2009 All-Hazards Laboratory Preparedness Survey examined overall laboratory capab...