Learning from the H1N1 flu outbreak

In September, the UCLA School of Public Health's Center for Public Health and Disasters brought together representatives from federal, state and local health agencies, hospitals, emergency medical services, and private industry for an intensive two-day workshop to assess the effectiveness of actions taken during the early months of the novel H1N1 influenza outbreak. A new report on those proceedings — including recommendations for dealing with the continuing H1N1 pandemic and future national disease outbreaks — is now available in the current issue of the journal Prehospital and Disaster Medicine. Workshop participants looked at the actions taken as the H1N1 outbreak unfolded in four categories — epidemiology, public-health risk communication, local public health actions and provision of health care — and identified both effective strategies and processes that could have been handled differently. Keynote presentations by officers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Public Health Service provided an overview of the spring outbreak, as well as the CDC's role and strategy in responding to the outbreak and the decisions that led to the federal declaration of a public health emergency in April. Participants focused on the challenges of applying the broad guidance provided by the CDC and other agencies to specific situations, such as whether to close schools or cancel events and whether health care and emergency medical workers should use respirators.