A Rand Corp. study found that the federal Cities Readiness Initiative -- a program active in 72 metropolitan areas -- appears to have improved agencies' ability to rapidly and widely dispense life-saving medications and other medical supplies in the event of a large-scale bioterror attack or a naturally occurring infectious disease outbreak.
The study said there is merit in extending the program to other cities so the impact can be further monitored, although the analysis did not assess the cost-effectiveness of the effort or compare it to other public health priorities.
"The Cities Readiness Initiative has helped agencies in the nation's most-populous regions become better able to dispense life-saving medication following a bioterrorism event or after an infectious disease outbreak," lead author Henry Willis, a policy researcher at the Rand Corp., a nonprofit research organization based in Santa Monica, Calif., said in a statement.
The researchers said the initiative has helped increase the number of local public health staff members working on medication dispensing planning, strengthened partnerships between public health officials and local first-responder agencies and helped pay for new equipment such as mobile drug dispensing units.
No comments:
Post a Comment