scholarly journals Scientometric Analysis of Public Health Emergencies: 1994–2020

Author(s):  
Jing Liu ◽  
Yujie Wang ◽  
Qian Zhang ◽  
Jianxiang Wei ◽  
Haihua Zhou

The purpose of this paper is to summarize the research hotspots and frontiers in the field of public health emergencies (PHE) between 1994–2020 through the scientometric analysis method. In total, 2247 literature works retrieved from the Web of Science core database were analyzed by CiteSpace software, and the results were displayed in knowledge mapping. The overall characteristics analysis showed that the number of publications and authors in the field of PHE kept an upward trend during the past decades, and the United States was in the leading position, followed by China and England. Switzerland has the highest central value and plays an important intermediary role in promoting the integration and exchange of international PHE research achievements. The keyword co-occurrence analysis indicated that COVID-19 was the most high-frequency keyword in this field, and there had been no new keywords for a long time until the outbreak of COVID-19 in 2019. The burst detection analysis showed that the top five burst keywords in terms of burst intensity were zika virus, Ebola, United States, emergency preparedness and microcephaly. The results indicated that the research theme of PHE is closely related to the major infectious diseases in a specific period. It will continue to develop with more attention paid to public health. The conclusions can provide help and reference for the PHE potential researchers.

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
HyunJung Kim

Abstract Background: Historical institutionalism (HI) determines that institutions have been transformed by a pattern of punctuated evolution due to exogenous shocks. Although scholars frequently emphasize the role of agency - endogenous factors – when it comes to institutional changes, but the HI analytic narratives still remain in the meso-level analysis in the context of structure and agency. This article provides domestic and policy-level accounts of where biodefense institutions of the United States and South Korea come from, seeing through emergency-use-authorization (EUA) policy, and how the EUA policies have evolved by employing the policy-learning concepts through the Event-related Policy Change Model. Results: By employing the Birkland’s model, this article complements the limitation of the meso-level analysis in addressing that the 2001 Amerithrax and the 2015 Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) outbreak rooted originations and purposes of the biodefense respectively. Since the crisis, a new post-crisis agenda in society contributed to establishing new domestic coalition, which begin to act as endogenous driving forces that institutionalize new biodefense institutions and even reinforce them through path dependent way when the institutions evolved. Therefore, EUA policy cores (Post-Exposure Prophylaxis (PEP) in the United States and Non-Pharmaceutical Intervention (NPI) in South Korea keep strengthened during the policy revisions. Conclusions: The United States and South Korea have different originations and purposes of biodefense, which are institutions evolving through self-reinforce dependent way based on the lessons learned from past crises. In sum, under the homeland security biodefense institution, the US EUA focuses on the development of specialized, unlicensed PEP in response to public health emergencies; on the other hand, under the disease containment-centric biodefense institution, the Korean EUA is specialized to conduct NPI missions in response to public health emergencies.


2020 ◽  
Vol 70 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. S27-S29
Author(s):  
Dana Meaney-Delman ◽  
Nadia L Oussayef ◽  
Margaret A Honein ◽  
Christina A Nelson

Abstract Pregnant women are an important at-risk population to consider during public health emergencies. These women, like nonpregnant adults, may be faced with the risk of acquiring life-threatening infections during outbreaks or bioterrorism (BT) events and, in some cases, can experience increased severity of infection and higher morbidity compared with nonpregnant adults. Yersinia pestis, the bacterium that causes plague, is a highly pathogenic organism. There are 4 million births annually in the United States, and thus the unique needs of pregnant women and their infants should be considered in pre-event planning for a plague outbreak or BT event.


2009 ◽  
Vol 3 (S1) ◽  
pp. S74-S82 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph A. Barbera ◽  
Dale J. Yeatts ◽  
Anthony G. Macintyre

ABSTRACTIn the United States, recent large-scale emergencies and disasters display some element of organized medical emergency response, and hospitals have played prominent roles in many of these incidents. These and other well-publicized incidents have captured the attention of government authorities, regulators, and the public. Health care has assumed a more prominent role as an integral component of any community emergency response. This has resulted in increased funding for hospital preparedness, along with a plethora of new preparedness guidance.Methods to objectively measure the results of these initiatives are only now being developed. It is clear that hospital readiness remains uneven across the United States. Without significant disaster experience, many hospitals remain unprepared for natural disasters. They may be even less ready to accept and care for patient surge from chemical or biological attacks, conventional or nuclear explosive detonations, unusual natural disasters, or novel infectious disease outbreaks.This article explores potential reasons for inconsistent emergency preparedness across the hospital industry. It identifies and discusses potential motivational factors that encourage effective emergency management and the obstacles that may impede it. Strategies are proposed to promote consistent, reproducible, and objectively measured preparedness across the US health care industry. The article also identifies issues requiring research. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2009;3(Suppl 1):S74–S82)


2021 ◽  
pp. e1-e7
Author(s):  
William Riley ◽  
Kailey Love ◽  
Jeffrey McCullough

The COVID-19 pandemic has precipitated an acute blood shortage for medical transfusions, exacerbating an already tenuous blood supply system in the United States, contributing to the public health crisis, and raising deeper questions regarding emergency preparedness planning for ensuring blood availability. However, these issues around blood availability during the pandemic are related primarily to the decline in supply caused by reduced donations during the pandemic rather than increased demand for transfusion of patients with COVID-19. The challenges to ensure a safe blood supply during the pandemic will continue until a vaccine is developed, effective treatments are available, or the virus goes away. If this virus or a similar virus were capable of transmission through blood, it would have a catastrophic impact on the health care system, causing a future public health emergency that would jeopardize the national blood supply. In this article, we identify the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on blood supply adequacy, discuss the public health implications, propose recovery strategies, and present recommendations for preparing for the next disruption in blood supply driven by a public health emergency. (Am J Public Health. Published online ahead of print March 18, 2021: e1–e7. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2021.306157 )


Author(s):  
Cheryl A. Levine ◽  
Daire R. Jansson

Abstract Public health emergencies, including the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, highlight disproportionate impacts faced by populations with existing disparities. Concepts and terms used to describe populations disproportionately impacted in emergencies vary over time and across disciplines, but United States (U.S.) federal guidance and law require equal access to our nation’s emergency resources. At all levels of emergency planning, public health and their partners must be accountable to populations with existing inequities, which requires a conceptual shift towards using the data-driven social determinants of health (SDOH). SDOH are conditions in which people are born, live, learn, work, play, worship, and age that affect a wide range of health, functioning, and quality of life outcomes and risks. This article reviews the historic use of concepts and terms to describe populations disproportionately impacted by emergencies. It also recommends a shift in emergency activities towards interventions that target the SDOH to adequately address long-standing systemic health disparities and socioeconomic inequities in the U.S.


Author(s):  
Ashley Tseung

AbstractSince 9/11, the United States and the international community have emphasized the need to protect people from terrorist attacks. The Boston Bombing that took place on April 15, 2013, showed that even with all of the preventive measures in place, the United States is not immune from terrorist attacks. If there had been a bioterrorist attack in Boston instead of a homemade bomb, the amount of casualties would likely have been a lot higher. Many hospitals lack effective emergency preparedness plans that address bioterrorist attacks. One area that will help prepare nations during a mass casualty incident or public health emergency involves implementing effective mass casualty preparedness plans for hospitals. This paper analyzes mass casualty preparedness in hospitals and demonstrates the need to have legislation in place to protect doctors who treat patients during mass casualty events.


2020 ◽  
Vol 50 (6-7) ◽  
pp. 568-576
Author(s):  
H. Daniel Xu ◽  
Rashmita Basu

The unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic has already caused enormous economic and human life losses in the United States and it is still ravaging the country. In this article, the authors argue that the pandemic has exposed key issues of concern in several areas of the American government system ranging from federalist intergovernmental relations to public health system and to health care policy. These issues of concern include the strained federal-state relations in emergency management, inadequate data collection and data reporting for disease surveillance and control, politicization and diminished role of science and evidence in administrative decision making, and underinvestment in public health programs especially in minority health. Based on their analysis, the authors admonish that it is critically important for the U.S. government to learn from the failed response to the pandemic and offer several recommendations for improving its response to future public health emergencies and research in public administration.


2021 ◽  
Vol 69 (4) ◽  
pp. 699-703
Author(s):  
Mary Pat Couig ◽  
Jasmine L. Travers ◽  
Barbara Polivka ◽  
Jessica Castner ◽  
Tener Goodwin Veenema ◽  
...  

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