Citation

Iskander J, Rose DA, Ghiya ND. Am. J. Public Health 2017; 107(S2): S122-S125.

Affiliation

John Iskander and Neelam D. Ghiya are with Office of the Associate Director for Science, Office of the Director, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Atlanta, GA. Dale A. Rose is with Division of Emergency Operations, Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response, CDC.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2017, American Public Health Association)

DOI

10.2105/AJPH.2017.303951

PMID

28892452

Abstract

Recent high-profile activations of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Emergency Operations Center (EOC) include responses to the West African Ebola and Zika virus epidemics. Within the EOC, emergency responses are organized according to the Incident Management System, which provides a standardized structure and chain of command, regardless of whether the EOC activation occurs in response to an outbreak, natural disaster, or other type of public health emergency. By embedding key scientific roles, such as the associate director for science, and functions within a Scientific Response Section, the current CDC emergency response structure ensures that both urgent and important science issues receive needed attention. Key functions during emergency responses include internal coordination of scientific work, data management, information dissemination, and scientific publication. We describe a case example involving the ongoing Zika virus response that demonstrates how the scientific response structure can be used to rapidly produce high-quality science needed to answer urgent public health questions and guide policy. Within the context of emergency response, longer-term priorities at CDC include both streamlining administrative requirements and funding mechanisms for scientific research.

Language: en