Document Type

Article

Publication Date

10-2016

Publication Title

International Journal of Health Policy and Management

DOI

10.15171/ijhpm.2016.48

ISSN

2322-5939

Abstract

Background: Local health departments (LHDs) operate in a complex and dynamic public health landscape, with changing demands on their emergency response capacities. Informatics capacities might play an instrumental role in aiding LHDs emergency preparedness. This study aimed to explore the extent to which LHDs’ informatics capacities are associated with their activity level in emergency preparedness and to identify which health informatics capacities are associated with improved emergency preparedness.

Methods: We used the 2013 National Profile of LHDs study to perform Poisson regression of emergency preparedness activities.

Results: Only 38.3% of LHDs participated in full-scale exercises or drills for an emergency in the 12 months period prior to the survey, but a much larger proportion provided emergency preparedness training to staff (84.3%), and/or participated in tabletop exercises (76.4%). Our multivariable analysis showed that after adjusting for several resource-related LHD characteristics, LHDs with more of the 6 information systems still tend to have slightly more preparedness activities. In addition, having a designated emergency preparedness coordinator, and having one or more emergency preparedness staff were among the most significant factors associated with LHDs performing more emergency preparedness activities.

Conclusion: LHDs might want to utilize better health information systems and information technology tools to improve their activity level in emergency preparedness, through improved information dissemination, and evidence collection.

Comments

Article obtained from International Journal of Health Policy and Management. IJHPM is an open access journal. All published articles are freely available upon publication for everyone to read and download. Reusing and publishing IJHPM published articles is permitted by following Creative Commons user license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Users are free to copy and redistribute the IJHPM published articles in any medium or format under the Creative commons license terms and conditions.

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