Assessing regional public health preparedness: a new tool for considering cross-border issues.
OBJECTIVE
To provide regional, state, and local public health officials a conceptual framework and checklist for assessing regional public health emergency preparedness, specifically in regard to cross-border public health preparedness needs.


METHODS
The project had four phases that are as follows: defining the scope, conducting a literature review, soliciting expert opinion, and creating the assessment framework and checklist. A conceptual framework was developed to define the scope of the project on the basis of the kinds of resources likely to be shared across borders in a public health response (eg, data, supplies, staff), in support of the public health functions likely to be important in a health emergency (eg, epidemiology, laboratory). A literature review was then conducted to identify key articles and tools addressing regional preparedness. Key informant interviews (n = 23) were conducted with public health and emergency management professionals in the Pacific Northwest to identify a set of systems, agreements, and protocols that should be systematically considered in assessing regional public health preparedness. Using the literature review and themes from interviews, a checklist was developed.


RESULTS
A checklist was developed for use by public health leaders, which recommends 24 specific agreements, protocols, systems, and management structures that should be considered to foster cross-border public health preparedness.


CONCLUSIONS
Regional public health preparedness represents not only the sum of state-level preparedness of the states in a region but also the capacity of those states to collaborate across state and international borders during a public health emergency. This checklist provides a tool to systematically consider cross-border preparedness issues.
Jones
Maggie
M
Center for Community Health and Evaluation, Group Health Center for Health Studies, Seattle, Washington 98101, USA. jones.margaret@ghc.org
O'Carroll
Patrick
P
Thompson
Jack
J
D'Ambrosio
Luann
L
D001955:British Columbia; D003142:Communication; D004189:Disaster Planning / Q000379:methods*; D017408:Guidelines as Topic; D006801:Humans; D038622:Internationality; D007400:Interprofessional Relations; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D020380:Needs Assessment; D015205:Northwestern United States; D015980:Public Health Practice; D012040:Regional Health Planning / Q000379:methods*; D014481:United States; D014492:United States Public Health Service