States Score high on readiness to deal with disease, disasters,terrorism
Local and state health departments are better prepared than ever to dealwith public health emergencies, but recession-related budget cuts threaten toreverse hard-won gains, a newly released analysis finds.
The readiness of individual states to handle large-scale public healthemergencies was assessed in the eighth annual report, “Ready or Not? Protectingthe Public’s Health from Diseases, Disasters, and Bioterrorism,” commissionedby the health advocacy groups Trust for America’s Health and the Robert WoodJohnson Foundation.
Fourteen states met at least nine of 10 key indicators of emergencypreparedness, while three states — Arkansas, North Dakota, and Washington — metall 10.
Iowa and Montana had the lowest scores, meeting just five of the 10indicators.
“These scores reflect nearly 10 years of progress to improve how the nationprevents, identifies and contains new disease outbreaks and bioterrorismthreats and responds to the aftermath of natural disasters in the wake of theSeptember 11, 2001 and anthrax tragedies,” Trust for America’s Health ExecutiveDirector Jeffrey Levi, PhD, said in a Tuesday morning press conference.
Budget Cuts Threaten Post-9/11 Gains More than three-quarters of states metat least seven of the 10 indicators, but Levi warned that budget cuts at thenational, state, and local level may have already impacted readiness to respondto public health emergencies such as disease outbreaks, natural disasters, oracts of terrorism that impact public health.
Among the ominous signs:
33 states and Washington, D.C., cut funding for public health last year, and18 states cut funding for the second year in a row. Georgia decreased fundingthe most by almost 35%, followed by Arizona and the District of Columbia, whichcut funding by 23% and 18%, respectively. Since 2008, 15% of public health workforce has been cut at 2,700 health departments across the country. In additionto cutting staff, many state and local governments have instituted workfurloughs, hiring freezes, and shorter workweeks to address budget shortfalls.Nearly three-quarters of Americans live in areas where local health departmentshave fewer employees than they did before the recession began.
]]>
Levi points out that the cuts would have been much worse without one-timefunding infusions to public health from the 2009 stimulus bill and emergencyappropriations for the H1N1 outbreak.
He added that the cuts are now hitting home and their potential impactcannot be overstated.
“The combined federal, state, and local budget cuts constitute an emergencyfor emergency health preparedness in the U.S.,” he said.
State-by-State Breakdown
In addition to maintaining funding for public health programs, the 10indicators included in the analysis examined the ability of state and localhealth departments to gather and share information and respond to a prolongedemergencies affecting public health, among other measures.
Among the major findings:
Seven states are not able to share data electronically with health careproviders: Alabama, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Ohio, and SouthCarolina. Ten states do not have an electronic surveillance system in place toreport and exchange information: Alaska, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas,Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, and South Dakota. Half of the states donot mandate all licensed child care facilities to have a written evacuation andrelocation plan in the event of an emergency: Alaska, Arizona, Colorado,Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas,Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska,New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Wyoming. Threestates — Hawaii, Iowa, and Montana — and the District of Columbia reported nothaving enough staffing capacity to work five, 12-hour days for six to eightweeks in response to an infectious disease outbreak such as a flu pandemicsimilar to H1N1. H1N1 Response Praised
James S. Blumenstock, who is chief program officer for the Association ofStates and Territorial Health Officials, said the response to the 2009 H1N1swine flu outbreak highlights the progress that has been made in emergencypreparedness during the past decade.
“The response showed that the country was much better prepared to respond toa pandemic than it would have been just a few short years ago,” he said. “In ashort period of time the vaccine was developed and we were able to vaccinate 80million Americans.”
Blumenstock echoed Levy’s concerns about the impact of budget cuts on publichealth emergency readiness, noting that federal funds for public healthpreparedness have been cut by 27% since 2005.
He called on federal lawmakers to resist slashing public health funding evenfurther.
“Cuts in federal support are putting more than a decade of gains at risk ata time when the states are trying to cope with daunting and formidable budgetshortfalls of their own,” he said.
Article from articlesbase.com