January 05 Newsletter

Report: National Electronic Disease Surveillance System
Edited by G. Pezzino, MD, MPH
Published by the State and Territorial Epidemiologists
Available at: http://www.cste.org/publications.asp
Editorial (by William Stanhope, Institute faculty):

While this document was intended for those involved in the implementation of the National Electronic Disease Surveillance System (NEDSS), we feel it useful for anyone interested in the issues and challenges associated with syndromic surveillance.

It provides reasonable information about the design of an ideal system and a good discussion of the challenges of implementation of an ideal system. If for no other reason, it should be reviewed to help both decision makers and the end users understand the questions to ask to avoid the mistakes of purchasing systems that rely on diving into data dumpsters and sorting through mounds of week-old data that at best will yield information with unacceptable high noise to signal ratios, and which will limit capacity to instantly communicate with all components of the preparedness community.

Report: Ready or Not?
Protecting the Public's Health in the Age of Bioterrorism
Published by the Trust for America's Health December 2004
Available at: http://healthyamericans.org/reports/bioterror04/
Editorial by William Stanhope, Institute faculty:

This is the second comprehensive "report card" analyzing the capacity of the individual states and the nation as a whole to protect citizens from natural and manmade threats to the public's health.

An important report, it is a clarion call for the elected and appointed leadership to abandon the comfort of laissez-faire indecisiveness that continues to paralyze our ability to define direction, make hard decisions about resource allocation and then get on with the demanding business of fulfilling the most basic of the social contracts between the citizenry and those serving as their protectors. If we lived in a time of accountability rather than a time of spin doctoring, blame shifting, and word parsing, this continued failure to "provide for the common defense" would be considered nothing short of negligence.

Report: The National Response Plan
Available at: Homeland Security web site: www.dhs.gov

Press release:

In 2004 the Department of Homeland Security released the national response plan that "establishes a comprehensive all-hazards approach to enhance the ability of the United States to manage domestic incidents. The plan incorporates best practices and procedures from incident management disciplines-homeland security, emergency management, law enforcement, firefighting, public works, public health, responder and recovery worker health and safety, emergency medical services, and the private sector-and integrates them into a unified structure with federal departments and agencies, state, local and tribal officials, private sector and national and international associations".

Report: Redefining Readiness: Terrorism Planning Through the Eyes of the Public
Funded by the W. K. Kellogg Foundation
Available at: http://www.cacsh.org/eptpp.html

Press Release (by New York Academy of Medicine):
What would you do if you found out that some people in your community had become sick with smallpox after having been exposed to the virus in a terrorist attack at a major airport? What if terrorists exploded a dirty bomb a mile away, when you were at work and your children were at school?

The study documents that only two-fifths of the American people would follow instructions to go to a public vaccination site in a smallpox outbreak and only three-fifths would stay inside an undamaged building other than their home after a dirty bomb explosion. "It's not that the rest of the people want to be uncooperative," said lead investigator Roz Lasker, M.D., Director of the Center and of the Academy's Division of Public Health. "The problem is that current plans unwittingly put them in extremely difficult decision-making predicaments. So even if first responders work out all of the challenging logistics, far fewer people would be protected than planners want or the public deserves."

This year-long study gave the American people their first opportunity to describe how they would react to two kinds of terrorist attacks: a smallpox outbreak and a dirty bomb explosion. The rigorous study involved in-depth conversations with government and private-sector planners, 14 group discussions with diverse community residents around the country, and a telephone survey of 2,545 randomly selected adults in the continental United States.

Have a question or comment? Email bioterr@slu.edu