Brencic, D. J., Pinto, M., Gill, A., Kinzer, M. H., Hernandez, L.,

From Digital Culture & Society

Jump to: navigation, search

[edit] Support for Global Public Health Emergency Management.Emerging Infectious Diseases

Brencic, D. J., Pinto, M., Gill, A., Kinzer, M. H., Hernandez, L., & Pasi, O. G. (2017). CDC Support for Global Public Health Emergency Management. Emerging Infectious Diseases, 23S183-S189. Retrieved from http://eds.b.ebscohost.com/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=11&sid=41825ded-f468-4445-8546-c11cc4e21c6b%40sessionmgr120

Review by Ben Blanchard


Public Health Emergency Management(PHEM) within the field of emergency management is one of the most significant in executing as it encompasses numerous unique challenges and issues. Responding to pandemics and rapidly spreading outbreaks requires global cooperation across nations. The Center for Diseases Control(CDC) is at the forefront of collaboration and coordination of PHEM response, it supports PHEM by “providing in county technical assistance, aiding the development of plans and procedures, and providing fellowships opportunities for public health emergency management. While this abstract function well to introduce the topic and subject matter of the article it fails to summarize what the purpose of the article is or what it hopes to achieve.


Recent outbreaks have such as 2016 Zika outbreak,2009 H1N1 pandemic and the 2014 Ebola demonstrate how quickly outbreaks in developing nations can spread world wide and highlight the need for interconnectedness worldwide to allow for quick and effective response by PHEM. In response to this the World Health Organization(WHO) and the CDC along with other international organizations updated the International Health Response leading to the adoption of IHR 2005 which encompassed the “obligation for all state parties to establish core capacities to detect, asses, notify and report events and to respond to public health risks and emergencies”(p. 183). Around the same time as this the CDC was also development its own response program establishing its first permanent emergency operations center in 2003 and in 2013 becoming the first agency to receive accreditation from the Emergency Management Accreditation program. Through this the CDC has become the world leader in PHEM and continually helps countries develop strong health security. Below a time line is shown that illustrate the CDC development of PHEM from 2001 to 2016.

A history of the CDC global PHEM work is provided, over the past 2 decades the CDC has grown considerably having 342 staff in 50 countries supported by 1368 locally employed staff. Between 2011-2015 the CDC central America regional office supported the risk management departments of 8 ministry of health in central America region through the council of ministers of health of central America cooperative agreement. In 2011 the CDC also began to cooperate with the Chinese center for diseases control and prevention resulting in Chinese staff being embedded within CDC emergency management teams in order to receive specialized training. In 2013 the CDC established the public health emergency management fellowship program (PHEMFP) in order to “build PHEM capacity among members of the international public health community through residential training and mentorship”(p. 185). the Emergency Operations Center was established in 2012 which provided a framework for public health emergency managers and practitioners to build core capacity elements necessary for effective response to public health emergencies.


In 2014 the United States signed a 5 year long commitment to the GHSA whose goal is to prepare nations around the world to more efficiently prepare and respond to diseases threats. The CDC began to support the GHSA around the time of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. The CDC provided assistance in Guiana, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Responding to the Outbreak provided the CDC a “unique opportunity to understand and overcome the challenge of providing technical assistance to countries with limited emergency management capacity”(p. 186). The CDC has also collaborated extensively with the countries of Cameroon and Senegal in order to develop more comprehensive PHEM programs to better respond to potential futures outbreaks. Lastly the CDC collaboration with other multinational organization is outlined as being important to asses a countries capacity to prevent and respond to public health threats.

Next the limitations of world wide PHEM capacity is discussed. With PHEM still being a relatively new concept many developing countries face numerous different challenges in properly implementing it effectively. Limited financial and human resources often being the two biggest obstacles to overcome for many countries. While the CDC does provide technical assistance and resources to developing PHEM it is still an ongoing process that will take time. In its conclusions it again states how as the world becomes more interconnected the need for more effective preparation for public health threats becomes greater. It encourages the CDC to continue providing assistance to developing nations but to also further standardize the PHEM approach.

This provides a very detail overview on the development of public emergency management within the past decade. Citing the importance of Organization such as the CDC and WHO are to shaping the guidelines and procedures to effective PHEM it outlines the various contributions and development these organizations have produced in the field of PHEM such as the establishment of the international health regulations in 2005 and the establishment of emergency operations centers. The research of the article is also modern and relevant looking at recent outbreak such as the 2016 Zika outbreak and 2014 Ebola outbreak ensure that this article remain relevant to current work with the PHEM field. This article does at times lack focus on cohesion. As pointed out in the review of the abstract this article lacks a clear research purpose and this is at times evident within the article as significant portion of the article involves the listing of development within PHEM however it tends to move between different organization and programs sporadically from different years at times without clear chronological order which makes the article difficult to comprehend at times. This article could serve to benefit from having a more narrow focus rather than attempt to provide an entire overview of the development of PHEM in the past decade.

Personal tools
Bookmark and Share