Health Affairs, 10.1377/hlthaff.w5.412
Copyright © 2005 by Project HOPE
Public Health Response To Urgent Case Reports
David J. Dausey 1*,
Nicole Lurie 2,
Alexis Diamond 3
1
David Dausey is an associate policy researcher at RAND in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
2 Nicole Lurie is senior natural scientist and the Paul O'Neill Alcoa Professor at RAND in Arlington, Virginia.
3 Alexis Diamond is a doctoral candidate at the Center for Basic Research in the Social Sciences, Harvard University, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
*Corresponding author.
We evaluated the ability of local public health agencies (LPHAs) to meet a preparedness standard set by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC): to receive and respond to urgent case reports of communicable diseases twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. We found substantial variability in performance and in the systems in place to respond to such reports. Development and implementation of measures of public health agencies' performance are crucial to improving public health preparedness and, ultimately, to assuring the agencies' accountability.
Key Words:
Health Promotion/Disease Prevention, Public Health, Bioterrorism