Study: Health agencies fail to quickly respond to infectious disease reports
A recent study of 74 U.S. local public health agencies found that many failed to respond quickly - if at all - to reports of a potential disease outbreak, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Thursday.
The RAND Corp. had researchers pretend to be doctors and call randomly selected agencies to report cases of infectious diseases.
Two-thirds of the contacted departments failed to call back within 30 minutes. Almost 40 percent of the agencies failed to call back at all after receiving at least one call.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that a public health expert respond within 30 minutes to any report of infectious diseases such as smallpox, anthrax or meningitis. That quick turnaround is intended to prevent the spread of a disease occurring naturally or through an act of bioterrorism.
"Local public health agencies are basically the first line of defense in an emergency. The public rightfully expects their health department will be there for them, and the first thing is to pick up the phone and respond to an emergency," said RAND researcher David Dausey, lead author of the study.
"We found that that doesn't happen, or doesn't happen with the frequency and regularity that we would hope," he added.
Calls answered by a live person rather than voicemail were more likely to receive a quick response, Dausey said.
COMMENTS
- Although the headline of this article certainly met the desired effect of attracting my attention, it did not provide enough information regarding the type of disease reported, the geographical area where the public health agencies were tested, whether a central reporting number was used or if the local business line for the health department was used.Additionally, the article indicated the public health system was the first line of defense during an emergency. This is an incorrect statement as the first line of defense in any emergency is the local health care system. The system of Dr offices, hospitals, clinics and other healthcare facilities, along with the EMS and public safety system deal with emergencies every day and are quite good at it. What the article should have stated was that the public health system was the first line of defense for dealing with disease outbreaks. In most cases, public health has a coordination role during emergencies and not a response role. Although the public health system isn't perfect, it has made great strides over the last 6 years. John Dorling Posted January 9, 2008 8:38 AM
