Document Type
Article
Publication Date
9-5-2023
Abstract
OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to identify and prioritize strategies for strengthening public health system resilience for pandemics, disasters, and other emergencies using a scorecard approach.
METHODS: The United Nations Public Health System Resilience Scorecard (Scorecard) was applied across 5 workshops in Slovenia, Turkey, and the United States of America. The workshops focused on participants reviewing and discussing 23 questions/indicators. A Likert type scale was used for scoring with zero being the lowest and 5 the highest. The workshop scores were analyzed and discussed by participants to prioritize areas of need and develop resilience strategies. Data from all workshops were aggregated, analyzed, and interpreted to develop priorities representative of participating locations.
RESULTS: Eight themes emerged representing the need for better integration of public health and disaster management systems. These include: assessing community disease burden; embedding long-term recovery groups in emergency systems; exploring mental health care needs; examining ecosystem risks; evaluating reserve funds; identifying what crisis communication strategies worked well; providing non-medical services; and reviewing resilience of existing facilities, alternate care sites, and institutions.
CONCLUSIONS: The Scorecard is an effective tool for establishing baseline resilience and prioritizing actions. The strategies identified reflect areas in most need for investment to improve public health system resilience.
Recommended Citation
Ryan, Benjamin; Kako, Mayumi; Fink, Rok; Şimşek, Perihan; Barach, Paul; Acosta, Jose; Bhatia, Sanjaya; Brickhouse, Mark; Fendt, Matthew; Fontenot, Alicia; Arenas Garcia, Nahuel; Garner, Shelby; Gunduz, Abdülkadir; Hardin, D Mike; Hatch, Tim; Malrey-Horne, LaShonda; MacDermot, Makiko; Kayano, Ryoma; McKone, Joshua; Noel, Chaverle; Nomura, Shuhei; Novak, Jeremy; Stricklin, Andrew; Swienton, Raymond; Tayfur, Ismail; and Brooks, Bryan, "Strategies for Strengthening the Resilience of Public Health Systems for Pandemics, Disasters, and Other Emergencies" (2023). College of Population Health Faculty Papers. Paper 183.
https://jdc.jefferson.edu/healthpolicyfaculty/183
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Language
English
Comments
This article is the author's final published version in Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness, Volume 17, September 2023, Pages e479.
The published version is available at https://doi.org/10.1017/dmp.2023.136.
Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Society for Disaster Medicine and Public Health.
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.