Bioterrorism Preparedness: A Progress Report

Program Notes

Challenges for Public Health

  • Communication with public health, medical response community and general public
  • Coordination with emergency response agencies
  • Build staying power

CDC Support for State and Local Preparedness

  • Develop broad-based response planning
  • Maintain and distribute National Pharmaceutical Stockpile
  • Enhance disease detection and investigation
  • Create information systems
  • Organize data
  • Improve response workforce
  • Support communication planning

Lessons Learned - The 5 C's

  • Communication-Proactive communication with multiple audiences is essential. CDC is making this a priority in preparedness planning, and has established an emergency communications system with teams focused on specific audiences and channels:
    • Media
    • Web
    • Hotline/Public Inquiry
  • Community Health Education
  • Public Health Workforce
  • Clinicians
  • Policymakers
  • Coordination-knowing who's in charge, how a response will be managed, and practicing that is a key part of preparedness.
  • Consultation-getting feedback from partners before, during, and after an event.
  • Capacity-ensuring we have staff and lab capacity to perform essential functions like sample testing.
  • Competency-ensuring that we have a well-trained workforce and ways to get technical assistance.