title: Integrating public health and medical intelligence gathering into homeland security fusion centres.
abstract: Homeland security fusion centres serve to gather, analyse and share threat-related information among all levels of governments and law enforcement agencies. In order to function effectively, fusion centres must employ people with the necessary competencies to understand the nature of the threat facing a community, discriminate between important information and irrelevant or merely interesting facts and apply domain knowledge to interpret the results to obviate or reduce the existing danger. Public health and medical sector personnel routinely gather, analyse and relay health-related inform-ation, including health security risks, associated with the detection of suspicious biological or chemical agents within a community to law enforcement agencies. This paper provides a rationale for the integration of public health and medical personnel in fusion centres and describes their role in assisting law enforcement agencies, public health organisations and the medical sector to respond to natural or intentional threats against local communities, states or the nation as a whole.
authors: Yale New Haven Center for Emergency Preparedness and Disaster Response, New Haven, CT 06510, USA. brienne.lenart@ynhh.org
authors: Brienne
authors: B
authors: Lenart
authors: Joseph
authors: J
authors: Albanese
authors: William
authors: W
authors: Halstead
authors: Jeffrey
authors: J
authors: Schlegelmilch
authors: James
authors: J
authors: Paturas
mesh_terms: D002959:Civil Defense / Q000458:organization & administration*; D004189:Disaster Planning; D004632:Emergency Medical Services / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006801:Humans; D033181:Information Dissemination; D007373:Interinstitutional Relations; D035846:Law Enforcement; D011635:Public Health Administration; D023481:Terrorism / Q000517:prevention & control; D014481:United States