Critical Biological Agents: Disease Reporting as a Tool for Determining Bioterrorism Preparedness

2002 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 262-266 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heather H. Horton ◽  
James J. Misrahi ◽  
Gene W. Matthews ◽  
Paula L. Kocher
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Terrorist Attack ◽  
September 11 ◽  
Mass Casualty ◽  
Biological Agents ◽  
September 11Th ◽  
The Public ◽  
Organizational Challenges ◽  
Control And Prevention

Before September 11, 2001, a mass-casualty terrorist attack on American soil was generally considered a remote possibility. Similarly, before October 4, 2001—the first confirmed case of anthrax caused by intentional release — widespread bioterrorism seemed implausible. Among the arguments that such a biological artack was unlikely included: the lack of a historical precedent; the technological and organizational challenges to acquiring and weaponizing a biological agent; and the almost universal moral opprobrium that would certainly accompany the use by terrorists of such a weapon. In the wake of September 11th and October 4th, however, many are reconsidering the likelihood of a large-scale bioterrorist attack against civilians.The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) defines bioterrorism as the intentional release of viruses, bacteria, or toxins for the purpose of harming or killing civilian. One measurement of the public health system's level of bioterrorism preparedness is the quality and distribution of laws mandating the reporting of diseases caused by certain biological agents.

The Pathof Holding Smokeless Large-scale Sports Events under the Background of Public Health Emergency of International Concern

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (6) ◽  
pp. 5151-5160
Author(s):  
Wang Ping ◽  
Cong Jun ◽  
LiLi
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Effective Means ◽  
Sporting Events ◽  
The Public ◽  
Sports Events ◽  
Control And Prevention ◽  
Formed Part ◽  
And Control ◽  
Sports Activities

Objectives: As the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) continues to spread and smokeless sports influences sports, large-scale sporting events fascinate international and national host-country athletes and millions of travelers, which has a profound impact on large-scale sports events. Based on the methods of literature, case analysis and induction, this paper analyzes the experience of holding smokeless large-scale sports events in the context of PHEIC through the epidemic background, the measures taken by countries and the results of holding large-scale sports events. The result shows that countries took measures to strengthen surveillance of infectious diseases and be fully prepared for any incident during PHEIC. Though it may need added resources and support, these endeavors were beneficial and formed part of the experience of major events. The successful experience of holding smokeless large-scale sports events in the context of PHEIC should not dissipate with the epidemic abating, but should actively upgrade theconcept of crisis management and explore the development path of smoke-free sports events. The path includes the following: International cooperation is the key to the success of large-scale sports events and potential intervention is an effective means to prevent the spread of epidemics. Risk communication provides effective guidance for the evolution of control and prevention of epidemics. The use of digital technology to monitor the outbreak of diseases in sports activities brings new opportunities for the public health prevention and treatment system, aiming to provide support for today's sports events, and then promote the construction of emergency prevention and control systems for large-scale sports events under the trend of globalization and normalization of the epidemic situation.

scholarly journals Privacy, security, and the public health researcher in the era of electronic health record research

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Neal D Goldstein ◽  
Anand D Sarwate
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Data Privacy ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Health Data ◽  
Shared Responsibility ◽  
Privacy And Security ◽  
The Public ◽  
Health Researcher ◽  
Public Health Researcher ◽  
Electronic Health

Health data derived from electronic health records are increasingly utilized in large-scale population health analyses. Going hand in hand with this increase in data is an increasing number of data breaches. Ensuring privacy and security of these data is a shared responsibility between the public health researcher, collaborators, and their institutions. In this article, we review the requirements of data privacy and security and discuss epidemiologic implications of emerging technologies from the computer science community that can be used for health data. In order to ensure that our needs as researchers are captured in these technologies, we must engage in the dialogue surrounding the development of these tools.

Epidemiological Forecasting: A Crystal Ball for COVID-19 and Future Pandemics

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Saketh Sundar ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Disease Control ◽  
Crystal Ball ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Us ◽  
Control And Prevention ◽  
The Media

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, headlines ranging from “Coronavirus forecasts are grim: It’s going to get worse” to “Covid-19 cases and deaths in the US will fall over the next four weeks, forecast predicts” have dominated the news (Achenbach, 2020; Kallingal, 2021). The weekly-published Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) COVID-19 forecasts have become the go-to forecasts for the media, the public, and various levels of government (Cramer et al., 2021). These projections, generated from epidemiological forecasting, not only inform the public’s caution towards the pandemic but are also crucial for officials to create public health guidelines and allocate resources in hospitals (Gibson et al., 2020). But where do these predictions come from?

Evidence-Based Cancer Practices, Programs, and Interventions

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria E. Fernandez ◽  
Patricia Dolan Mullen ◽  
Jennifer Leeman ◽  
Timothy J. Walker ◽  
Cam Escoffery
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Clinical Practice ◽  
Practice Guidelines ◽  
Cancer Control ◽  
Health Impact ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
The Public ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Control Research ◽  
Control And Prevention

There are many evidence-based interventions, cancer control practices, programs, treatments, and clinical practice guidelines across cancer control and prevention topic areas that have great potential for decreasing the cancer burden. Nevertheless, challenges in identifying evidence-based interventions (EBIs) that match the needs of community and practice settings, adapting EBIs for new populations and contexts, and implementing EBIs in real-world settings limit the public health impact of cancer control research and its products. This chapter provides an introduction to existing EBIs for cancer control and provides examples of different types of EBIs across the cancer continuum. It highlights issues related to the identification of EBIs, including the evaluation of EBI resources. It also describes processes that can be used to enhance the development, adaptation, and implementation of evidence-based cancer control interventions.

Public health preparedness and response competency model methodology

2013 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Ablah, PhD, MPH ◽  
Elizabeth McGean Weist, MA, MPH, CPH ◽  
John E. McElligott, MPH, CPH ◽  
Laura A. Biesiadecki, MSPH, CPH ◽  
Audrey R. Gotsch, DrPH, MCHES ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Core Competency ◽  
Competency Model ◽  
National Standard ◽  
Public Health Workforce ◽  
Public Health Preparedness ◽  
Training And Education ◽  
The Public ◽  
Competency Models ◽  
Control And Prevention

Objective: The Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act calls for establishing a competency-based training program to train public health practitioners. To inform such training, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Association of Schools of Public Health managed groups of experts to produce a competency model which could function as a national standard of behaviorally based, observable skills for the public health workforce to prevent, protect against, respond to, and recover from all hazards.Design: A systematic review of existing competency models generated a competency model of proposed domains and competencies.Participants: National stakeholders were engaged to obtain consensus through a three-stage Delphi-like process.Results: The Delphi-like process achieved 84 percent, 82 percent, and 79 percent response rates in its three stages. Three hundred sixty six unique individuals responded to the three-round process, with 45 percent (n = 166) responding to all three rounds. The resulting competency model features 18 competencies within four core learning domains targeted at midlevel public health workers.Conclusions: Practitioners and academics have adopted the Public Health Preparedness and Response Core Competency Model, some of whom have formed workgroups to develop curricula based on the model. Efforts will be needed to develop evaluation materials for training and education programs to refine the model as well as for future training and education initiatives.

scholarly journals Silver Linings Reported by Australians Experiencing Public Health Restrictions during the First Phase of the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Qualitative Report

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (21) ◽  
pp. 11406
Author(s):  
Narelle Campbell ◽  
Sandra C. Thompson ◽  
Anna Tynan ◽  
Louise Townsin ◽  
Lauren A. Booker ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Rapid Identification ◽  
National Study ◽  
The Public ◽  
Health Measures ◽  
Negative Impacts ◽  
Mental Well Being

This national study investigated the positives reported by residents experiencing the large-scale public health measures instituted in Australia to manage the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Most Australians had not previously experienced the traditional public health measures used (social distancing, hand hygiene and restriction of movement) and which could potentially impact negatively on mental well-being. The research design included qualitative semi-structured phone interviews where participants described their early pandemic experiences. Data analysis used a rapid identification of themes technique, well-suited to large-scale qualitative research. The ninety participants (mean age 48 years; 70 women) were distributed nationally. Analysis revealed five themes linked with mental well-being and the concept of silver linings: safety and security, gratitude and appreciation, social cohesion and connections, and opportunities to reset priorities and resilience. Participants demonstrated support for the public health measures and evidence of individual and community resilience. They were cognisant of positives despite personal curtailment and negative impacts of public health directives. Stories of hope, strength, and acceptance, innovative connections with others and focusing on priorities and opportunities within the hardship were important strategies that others could use in managing adversity.

scholarly journals Presenting or Spinning Facts? Deconstructing the U.S. Centers for Disease Control Statement on the Importance of Reopening Schools Under COVID-19

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Habib Benzian ◽  
Marilyn Johnston ◽  
Nicole Stauf ◽  
Richard Niederman
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Disease Control ◽  
Public Perception ◽  
Political Influence ◽  
Analysis Tool ◽  
Word Choice ◽  
The Public ◽  
Control And Prevention ◽  
Centers For Disease Control ◽  
The U.S

Credible, reliable and consistent information to the public, as well as health professionals and decision makers, is crucial to help navigate uncertainty and risk in times of crisis and concern. Traditionally, information and health communications issued by respected and established government agencies have been regarded as factual, unbiased and credible. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is such an agency that addresses all aspects of health and public health on behalf of the U.S Government for the benefit of its citizens. In July 2020, the CDC issued guidelines on reopening schools which resulted in open criticism by the U.S. President and others, prompting a review and publication of revised guidelines together with a special “Statement on the Importance of Reopening Schools under COVID-19.” We hypothesize that this statement introduced bias with the intention to shift the public perception and media narrative in favor of reopening of schools. Using a mixed methods approach, including an online text analysis tool, we demonstrate that document title and structure, word frequencies, word choice, and website presentation did not provide a balanced account of the complexity and uncertainty surrounding school reopening during the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite available scientific guidance and practical evidence-based advice on how to manage infection risks when reopening schools, the CDC Statement was intentionally overriding possible parent and public health concerns. The CDC Statement provides an example of how political influence is exercised over the presentation of science in the context of a major pandemic. It was withdrawn by the CDC in November 2020.

scholarly journals Measuring the scientific effectiveness of contact tracing: Evidence from a natural experiment

2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (33) ◽  
pp. e2100814118
Author(s):  
Thiemo Fetzer ◽  
Thomas Graeber
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Natural Experiment ◽  
Controlled Trial ◽  
Contact Tracing ◽  
Public Health Approach ◽  
The Public ◽  
Random Breakdown ◽  
Randomized Controlled ◽  
Health Authorities

Contact tracing has for decades been a cornerstone of the public health approach to epidemics, including Ebola, severe acute respiratory syndrome, and now COVID-19. It has not yet been possible, however, to causally assess the method’s effectiveness using a randomized controlled trial of the sort familiar throughout other areas of science. This study provides evidence that comes close to that ideal. It exploits a large-scale natural experiment that occurred by accident in England in late September 2020. Because of a coding error involving spreadsheet data used by the health authorities, a total of 15,841 COVID-19 cases (around 20% of all cases) failed to have timely contact tracing. By chance, some areas of England were much more severely affected than others. This study finds that the random breakdown of contact tracing led to more illness and death. Conservative causal estimates imply that, relative to cases that were initially missed by the contact tracing system, cases subject to proper contact tracing were associated with a reduction in subsequent new infections of 63% and a reduction insubsequent COVID-19–related deaths of 66% across the 6 wk following the data glitch.

scholarly journals Understanding the Public Discussion About the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention During the COVID-19 Pandemic Using Twitter Data: Text Mining Analysis Study

10.2196/25108 ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. e25108
Author(s):  
Joanne Chen Lyu ◽  
Garving K Luli
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Disease Control ◽  
The United States ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Public Discussion ◽  
The Public ◽  
Twitter Data ◽  
The World ◽  
Control And Prevention ◽  
Centers For Disease Control

Background The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is a national public health protection agency in the United States. With the escalating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on society in the United States and around the world, the CDC has become one of the focal points of public discussion. Objective This study aims to identify the topics and their overarching themes emerging from the public COVID-19-related discussion about the CDC on Twitter and to further provide insight into public's concerns, focus of attention, perception of the CDC's current performance, and expectations from the CDC. Methods Tweets were downloaded from a large-scale COVID-19 Twitter chatter data set from March 11, 2020, when the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic, to August 14, 2020. We used R (The R Foundation) to clean the tweets and retain tweets that contained any of five specific keywords—cdc, CDC, centers for disease control and prevention, CDCgov, and cdcgov—while eliminating all 91 tweets posted by the CDC itself. The final data set included in the analysis consisted of 290,764 unique tweets from 152,314 different users. We used R to perform the latent Dirichlet allocation algorithm for topic modeling. Results The Twitter data generated 16 topics that the public linked to the CDC when they talked about COVID-19. Among the topics, the most discussed was COVID-19 death counts, accounting for 12.16% (n=35,347) of the total 290,764 tweets in the analysis, followed by general opinions about the credibility of the CDC and other authorities and the CDC's COVID-19 guidelines, with over 20,000 tweets for each. The 16 topics fell into four overarching themes: knowing the virus and the situation, policy and government actions, response guidelines, and general opinion about credibility. Conclusions Social media platforms, such as Twitter, provide valuable databases for public opinion. In a protracted pandemic, such as COVID-19, quickly and efficiently identifying the topics within the public discussion on Twitter would help public health agencies improve the next-round communication with the public.

Agents of Care

Germ Wars ◽  
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melanie Armstrong
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Homeland Security ◽  
Disease Surveillance ◽  
Health Agency ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Specific Work ◽  
Role Of Government ◽  
The Public ◽  
Political Transformations ◽  
Control And Prevention

Following 9/11 and the subsequent anthrax attacks, the U.S. government enlisted the public health industry in homeland security and defense, bringing weapons like disease surveillance and life science research to the war against terrorism. As Congress poured out funding for bioterrorism preparedness, agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention rearranged themselves around new logics of biosecurity. In the decade after 9/11, CDC brought its surveillance, science, and communication practices to bear on questions of national security, and became a federal organizing agency for emergency response and pharmaceutical stockpile stewardship. The political transformations at the CDC exemplify how bioterrorism changed the role of government in disease management, along with the specific work of the nation’s largest public health agency.

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