Sell Tara Kirk, Watson Crystal R, Mullen Lucia, Shearer Matthew P, Toner Eric S
Tara Kirk Sell, PhD, and Crystal R. Watson, DrPH, are Senior Scholars, Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, and Associate Professors, Department of Environmental Health and Engineering; Lucia Mullen, MPH, is an Associate Scholar, Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, and Research Associate, Department of Environmental Health and Engineering; Matthew P. Shearer, MPH, is an Associate Scholar, Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, and Senior Research Associate, Department of Environmental Health and Engineering; and Eric S. Toner, MD, is a Senior Scholar, Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, and Senior Scientist, Department of Environmental Health and Engineering; all at the Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD.
Health Secur. 2025 Jan-Feb;23(1):62-69. doi: 10.1089/hs.2023.0184. Epub 2024 Oct 24.
We led the last large-scale exercise conducted by the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security before the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite COVID-19, pandemic exercises are more necessary than ever to prevent the loss of hard-fought gains achieved during COVID-19, keep policymakers from assuming all pandemics will be like COVID-19, and encourage continued engagement from policymakers in strengthening health resilience rather than returning to a cycle of panic and neglect. Pandemic exercises can also advance new solutions necessary to effectively meet the challenge of a future pandemic. Over 2 decades, the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security has developed and conducted 6 large-scale, high-level tabletop pandemic exercises. These exercises and others were designed to increase policy focus on the most critical needs in pandemic preparedness and heighten the urgency for making these changes in the near future. Pandemic experts and policymakers alike have highlighted the importance of exercises to ensure that all key actors involved in pandemic response-including the government, healthcare, public health, emergency response, and private business and industry sectors-understand both the best practices and policies to pursue before a pandemic and what to do once a pandemic occurs. These advance efforts can enhance planning, resource allocation, and coordination ahead of time and identify unique gaps and barriers. This commentary describes the approach we have developed to create and conduct such exercises and highlights key considerations that were important to successful outcomes.
我们主导了约翰·霍普金斯健康安全中心在新冠疫情大流行之前进行的最后一次大规模演习。尽管有新冠疫情，但大流行演习比以往任何时候都更加必要，以防止在新冠疫情期间来之不易的成果付诸东流，防止政策制定者认为所有大流行都将与新冠疫情一样，并鼓励政策制定者持续参与加强卫生韧性，而不是回到恐慌与忽视的循环中。大流行演习还可以推动有效应对未来大流行挑战所需的新解决方案。二十多年来，约翰·霍普金斯健康安全中心开发并进行了6次大规模、高级别的桌面大流行演习。这些演习及其他演习旨在使政策更加关注大流行防范中最关键的需求，并提高在不久的将来做出这些改变的紧迫性。大流行专家和政策制定者都强调了演习的重要性，以确保参与大流行应对的所有关键行为体——包括政府、医疗保健、公共卫生、应急响应以及私营企业和工业部门——了解大流行之前应遵循的最佳做法和政策，以及大流行发生后该怎么做。这些前期努力可以提前加强规划、资源分配和协调，并识别独特的差距和障碍。本评论描述了我们为创建和进行此类演习而制定的方法，并强调了对取得成功结果至关重要的关键考虑因素。
