The CDC ensures the health, safety, and security of the American people. CDC scientists and public health experts are world leaders at responding to large-scale health emergencies such as natural disasters, pandemics, deliberate attacks, environmental catastrophes, and other health threats.
Preparing for and responding to public health emergencies require involvement of the governor’s office – which coordinates and organizes the response – and multiple state agencies, such as public health, homeland security, and emergency management. This National Governors Association paper details actions governors can take to improve preparedness and response to public health emergencies.
Federal agencies, which the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) surveyed, generally use land mobile radio (LMR) equipment to meet their core missions, such as public safety, emergency management, or firefighting. In this report, GAO examined federal agencies' LMR interoperability and procurement practices.
Mass casualty decontamination is an intervention employed by first responders at the scene of an incident involving noxious contaminants. This report reviews decontamination guidance for emergency responders and associated research evidence, in order to establish the extent to which psychosocial aspects of casualty management have been considered within these documents.
Policymakers are interested in sea-level rise because of the risk to coastal populations and infrastructure and the consequences for coastal species and ecosystems. This report describes the phenomenon of sea-level rise, the types of effects that sea-level rise can have on U.S. coasts, and provides a primer on policy considerations.
The Office of Research and Development’s National Homeland Security Research Center (NHSRC), part of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), published a new study of biological agent disinfection in the field using a mobile advanced oxidation process.
The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) Chemical and Biological Defense Program (CBDP) 2016 Annual Report to Congress provides an assessment of the DOD's overall readiness to fight in a chemical and biological warfare environment. Highlighted within this report are some of the many accomplishments of the CBDP in fiscal year 2015.
The Dam Safety Act of 2006 requires the Federal Emergency Management Agency's administrator to submit a report to Congress that describes the status of the National Dam Safety Program, the progress achieved by federal agencies and participating states during the two preceding fiscal years, and recommendations for legislative and other necessary actions.
Following incidents of terrorism or mass violence in the United States, jurisdictions and individuals may be eligible to receive victim assistance directly from the Department of Justice (DOJ) and indirectly from DOJ state victim assistance agencies or other programs. This report focuses solely on assistance available from DOJ's Office for Victims of Crime.
In this report, the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues (Bioethics Commission) addressed the pressing need to improve key elements of US planning and response capabilities for future public health emergencies including leadership, transparency, and explicit ethics integration at all levels of public health decision making.
