One of the nation's key preparedness challenges
has been determining appropriate state and local
public health preparedness priorities.
To assist state and local public health departments
in their strategic planning, CDC developed
15 capabilities to serve as national public health
preparedness standards.
CDC's Public Health Preparedness Capabilities:
National Standards for State and Local Planning
now provides a guide that state and local
jurisdictions can use to better organize their work,
plan their priorities, and decide which capabilities
they have the resources to build or sustain.
The capabilities also ensure that federal
preparedness funds are directed to priority areas
within individual jurisdictions.
In this presentation, Introduction to the Public Health
Preparedness Capabilities (101),
we will discuss how – and why – the capabilities
were developed and detail some of the benefits
of this capabilities-based approach.
My name is Christine Kosmos,
I'm the Division Director for the Division of State
and Local Readiness here at CDC.
We're the agency that administers the Public Health
Emergency Preparedness cooperative agreement
to our 62 awardees.
Our division is located within the Office of Public Health
Preparedness and Response,
and we provide training and technical assistance,
as well as funding to our 62 awardees
around the country.
First a little bit of a history lesson:
in 1999 CDC awarded the first cooperative agreements
to a select few number of our awardees
to really focus on bioterrorism preparedness.
And after 911 and those events,
and especially after the anthrax attacks,
there really was much more appreciation
for the role of public health in emergency
preparedness and response,
and so Congress awarded funding to 62 awardees
which obviously included the 50 states,
the Territories, as well as four directly funded cities,
for bioterrorism preparedness and response, again.
And then after Hurricane Katrina, there was much more
of an understanding of the role of public health,
and how it pertains more to an all-hazard response.
And so over the years, it really has evolved
from more of a bioterrorism focus to more of an
all-hazards preparedness and response.
We want to talk a little bit about the reasons
for why we’re moving to a more
capabilities-based approach.
And for those of you that have been around
for a while, you will know that in the past
there have been many competing priorities
and it led to some difficulty in planning
and some confusion.
And so what we really wanted to do
was better define that, and give a much better way
for state and local public health to plan
their activities and prioritize their investments.
In addition to giving state and local public health
a much clearer idea on where to invest their resources
we also really wanted to do a better job
of describing how public health works with other sectors.
How do we work with the healthcare sector?
How do we work with emergency management?
How do we work with the business community?
All pieces of a puzzle that are intended to work together
in order to keep our communities safe.
We looked at relevant documents that we thought
would be helpful for development
of the public health preparedness capabilities.
So we reviewed the National Health Security Strategy,
the Pandemic and All Hazards Preparedness Act,
the CDC Strategic Goals, as well as other relevant
documents that had something to say about the role
of state and local public health and preparedness.
One of the documents that we looked very carefully at
was the National Health Security Strategy.
There are capabilities
within that document, and the ones that are
pertinent to state and local public health
are also included in our 15 public health
preparedness capabilities as well.
You will see that they look very familiar to you
because this is the work that we’ve been doing
for years in public health preparedness.
The public health preparedness capabilities-based approach
is a way of cataloguing and describing what must be done
to prepare for a major event.
CDC has adopted this same approach
but is focusing on 15 capabilities that are appropriate
and relevant to state and local public health.
DSLR recognized the importance of gaining feedback
from stakeholders, as well as engaging them
in the development of the 15 public health
preparedness capabilities.
The Division worked with some 200 CDC
and other subject matter experts
to develop the capabilities.
In addition, national partners, such as ASTHO,
the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials,
and NACCHO, the National Association of County
and City Health Officials, coordinated review
and feedback of the 15 public health preparedness
capabilities with the state and local practice community.
We believe there are many advantages
to the new capabilities-based approach.
First of all, it’s evidence-informed.
Second of all, we believe that it’s a much better way
to organize our work.
It’s a much better planning tool.
It takes all the relevant information and puts it in one place
so that states and locals have a very clear idea
about what it is that they need
to build for a particular public health preparedness capability.
We also believe that it’s going to give us
here at CDC a much clearer idea about
what the technical assistance needs are
at the state and local level.
We’re confident that these changes will result
in safer and more prepared communities.
We want to thank everyone that has participated
in development of the capabilities,
and we want to thank you at the state and local level
for everything that you’re doing and your efforts
to keep our communities safe.
CDC's Public Health Preparedness Capabilities:
National Standards for State and Local Planning
provides standards and practical guidance
for public health preparedness.
A second presentation, Overview of the Capabilities-Based
Approach to Public Health Preparedness (102),
outlines how the 15 public health preparedness
capabilities are structured, and using one capability
as an example, demonstrates how its component
parts relate to one another.