Are we prepared for the next emergency?
An interview with Dara Alpert Lieberman, an expert on emergency preparedness.
Our ability to stop terrorists from turning passenger planes into missiles wasn't the nation's only deficiency back 13 years ago. The public health system wasn't fully prepared for emergencies like anthrax either.
What progress have federal and state governments made in recent years to protect the public from natural disasters, disease outbreaks, and bioterrorism? What else needs to be done? Trust for America’s Health (TFAH), a public health nonprofit, addressed these questions in two reports: Ready or Not: Protecting the Public from Diseases, Disasters and Bioterrorism in 2012 and Outbreaks: Protecting Americans from Infectious Disease in 2013. (Pennsylvania did a bit better than average on the latter; New Jersey was in a three-way tie for last place.)
To learn more about what is being done and what should be done, I talked with Dara Alpert Lieberman, the organization's senior government relations manager, who leads its advocacy around emergency preparedness and infectious diseases.
What kinds of effective steps towards emergency preparedness have been made in recent years?
When September 11 and the anthrax attacks occurred, public health departments were not really part of the national security system. Now, local, state and federal health departments are integrated into our preparedness and response networks. This progress is thanks to focused investments in public health and hospital preparedness and new policies—such as the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act— passed by Congress. We are leaps and bounds ahead of where we were in 2001 in terms of public health laboratory capacity, development of vaccine and medical countermeasures, communications and planning. CDC [U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] in particular provides outstanding assistance—from training and exercise support to partnership opportunities to subject matter expertise to response support—to health departments, and it has improved in how it measures their capabilities. And the White House just released an Executive Order and National Strategy on Combating Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria, which are important steps forward in addressing an ongoing public health crisis, but do not go far enough, especially around the routine agricultural use of medically-important antibiotics in food animal production
Are there examples from the states or from cities that are model efforts in preparedness?
What kinds of things still need to be done?
How important is public health infrastructure and workforce to preparedness?
Planning is important, but without training, exercises, disease surveillance, coordination between hospitals and health departments, and medications and supplies, we could be fighting an outbreak with our backs against the wall. If we continue to neglect our public health and preparedness infrastructure, this nation could be shattered by an outbreak or bioterror attack.
How does preparing for emergencies that will hopefully not occur strengthen our public health infrastructure?
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