Public Health Emergencies

Public Health Emergencies provides a current overview of public health emergency preparedness and response principles with case studies highlighting lessons learned from recent natural and man-made disasters and emergencies. Designed for graduate and advanced undergraduate public health students, this book utilizes the 10 essential services of public health as performance standards and foundational competencies from the Council on Education for Public Health to assess public health systems. It emphasizes the roles and responsibilities of public health careers in state and local health departments as well as other institutions and clarifies their importance during health-related emergencies in the community. Written by prominent experts, including health professionals and leaders on the frontlines, this textbook provides the framework and lessons for understanding the public health implications of disasters, emergencies, and other catastrophic events, stressing applied understanding for students interested in pursuing public health preparedness roles. Practical in its approach, Part One begins with an introduction to the fundamentals of public health emergency preparedness with chapters on community readiness, all-hazards preparedness design, disaster risk assessments, and emergency operation plans. Part Two covers a range of public health emergency events, including hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, disease outbreaks and pandemics, accidents and chemical contamination, nuclear and radiological hazards, extreme heat events, and water supply hazards. The final part addresses special considerations, such as how the law serves as a foundation to public health actions; preparedness considerations for persons with disabilities, access, and functional needs; children and disasters; and a chapter evaluating emerging and evolving threats. Throughout, chapters convey the roles of front-line, supervisory, and leadership personnel of the many stakeholders involved in preparedness, response, and recovery efforts to demonstrate decision-making in action. Key Features: Provides the fundamentals of public health emergency preparedness and response with detailed case studies of recent natural and man-made disasters Explains the roles of administrators, planners, first responders, and other stakeholders involved in emergency response Covers major disaster planning and preparedness topics such as weather-related emergencies, bioterrorism, infectious disease outbreaks including COVID-19, wildfires, radiological and nuclear exposure, and many more Crosswalks the 10 essential public health services and foundational public health competencies illustrated in case examples

"During public health emergencies, people need to know what health risks they face, and what actions they can take to protect their health and lives. Accurate information provided early, often, and in languages and channels that people understand, trust and use, enables individuals to make choices and take actions to protect themselves, their families and communities from threatening health hazards." -- Publisher's description.

This books surveys the evolution of the international order in the quarter century since the end of the Cold War through the prism of developments in key regional and functional parts of the 'liberal international order 2.0' (LIO 2.0) and the roles played by two key ordering powers, the United States and the People's Republic of China. Among the partial orders analysed in the individual chapters are the regions of Europe, the Middle East and East Asia and the international regimes dealing with international trade, climate change, nuclear weapons, cyber space, and international public health emergencies, such as SARS and ZIKA. To assess developments in these various segments of the LIO 2.0, and to relate them to developments in the two other crucial levels of political order, order within nation-states, and at the global level, the volume develops a comprehensive, integrated framework of analysis that allows systematic comparison of developments across boundaries between segments and different levels of the international order. Using this framework, the book presents a holistic assessment of the trajectory of the international order over the last decades, the rise, decline, and demise of the LIO 2.0, and causes of the dangerous erosion of international order over the last decade.

When communities face complex public health emergencies, state local, tribal, and territorial public health agencies must make difficult decisions regarding how to effectively respond. The public health emergency preparedness and response (PHEPR) system, with its multifaceted mission to prevent, protect against, quickly respond to, and recover from public health emergencies, is inherently complex and encompasses policies, organizations, and programs. Since the events of September 11, 2001, the United States has invested billions of dollars and immeasurable amounts of human capital to develop and enhance public health emergency preparedness and infrastructure to respond to a wide range of public health threats, including infectious diseases, natural disasters, and chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear events. Despite the investments in research and the growing body of empirical literature on a range of preparedness and response capabilities and functions, there has been no national-level, comprehensive review and grading of evidence for public health emergency preparedness and response practices comparable to those utilized in medicine and other public health fields. Evidence-Based Practice for Public Health Emergency Preparedness and Response reviews the state of the evidence on PHEPR practices and the improvements necessary to move the field forward and to strengthen the PHEPR system. This publication evaluates PHEPR evidence to understand the balance of benefits and harms of PHEPR practices, with a focus on four main areas of PHEPR: engagement with and training of community-based partners to improve the outcomes of at-risk populations after public health emergencies; activation of a public health emergency operations center; communication of public health alerts and guidance to technical audiences during a public health emergency; and implementation of quarantine to reduce the spread of contagious illness.

Amid a global health crisis, the process for declaring a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) is at a crossroads. As a formal declaration by the World Health Organization, a PHEIC is governed by clear legislation as to what is, and what is not, deemed a global health security threat. However, it has become increasingly politicized, and the legal criteria now appear to be secondary to the political motivation or outcome of the announcement. Addressing multiple empirical case studies, including COVID-19, this multidisciplinary book explores the relationship between international law and international relations to interrogate how a PHEIC is declared and its role in how we collectively respond to outbreaks.

Emergency Ethics brings together leading scholars in the fields of public health ethics and bioethics to discuss disaster or emergency ethics and ethical aspects of preparedness and response with specific application to public health policy and practice. The book fills a gap in the existing public health ethics literature by providing a comprehensive ethical conception of emergency preparedness as a distinctive form of civic "practice" brought about by the interrelationships and coordination of many groups, disciplines, and interests and drawing on numerous bodies of knowledge and expertise. It addresses particular aspects of preparedness and response plans, particular decisions that planners and communities have to make, decisions that require balancing many diverse and sometimes conflicting values and identifying and applying a framework of basic ethical principles for preparedness planning, emergency response, and post-disaster recovery. It also explores the relationship between emergency preparedness to other facets of public health practice. The book begins with a broad and synthetic overview of emergency ethics that addresses the central components and ethically significant issues arising in public health preparedness planning, disaster response, and recovery. Following that overview are five chapters that in a philosophically innovative and detailed way delve deeply into important and problematic issues in emergency planning and response, including the allocation of scarce resources, conducting ethical research in the context of public health emergencies, the obligations of public health professionals, communication and engagement with the public, and special moral obligations surrounding vulnerable populations.

The successful management of emergencies and public health crises depends on adequate measures being implemented at all levels of the emergency chain of action, from policy makers to the general population. It starts with appropriate risk assessment, prevention, and mitigation and continues to prehospital and hospital care, recovery, and evaluation. All levels of action require well-thought out emergency management plans and routines based on established command and control, identified safety issues, functional communication, well-documented triage and treatment policies, and available logistics. All these characteristics are capabilities that should be developed and trained, particularly when diverse agencies are involved. In addition to institutional responses, a robust, community-based disaster response system can effectively mitigate and respond to all emergencies. A well-balanced response is largely dependent on local resources and regional responding agencies that all too often train and operate within “silos”, with an absence of interagency cooperation. The importance of this book issue is its commitment to all parts of emergency and public health crisis management from a multiagency perspective. It aims to discuss lessons learned and emerging risks, introduce new ideas about flexible surge capacity, and show the way it can practice multiagency collaboration.

Partisan divisions over policy in the U.S. Congress and rising disease threats put millions of Americans at risk. The Zika public health emergency is used to illustrate the key functions of coordination, providing countermeasures, and engaging in disease surveillance which the government must engage in during such an emergency. The author looks at how the standoff over Zika funding negatively affected the government’s response within federal agencies, as well as at the state and local level. Also examined in the book are serious threats still on the horizon that are expected to require strong government action in the future. Possible policies to avoid future gridlock are considered.