Chambers Andrea, Khan Isra, Repchuck Ruth, Muir Sarah, Hanson Heather, Khan Yasmin
Public Health Ontario, Toronto, ON, Canada.
Division of Emergency Medicine, Department of Medicine and Clinical Public Health Division, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada.
BMC Public Health. 2025 Jul 3;25(1):2366. doi: 10.1186/s12889-025-23270-6.
Emergency preparedness exercises are essential in building a resilient public health system that can support increasingly frequent and complex public health risks. This rapid review describes evidence-informed practices or principles that can enhance all-hazards emergency preparedness exercises, with a specific focus on the public health agency context.
Four databases were systematically searched, including MEDLINE, Embase, Global Health, and CINAHL (January 2013-June 2024) and complemented with a grey literature search. Studies were included if published in English, from a member country of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, relevant to the public health agency context, and reported outcomes that aligned with our primary research question. Included articles were assessed for quality based on study design. The analysis involved a descriptive summary and thematic analysis.
The review identified fifteen studies that reported insights on optimizing exercise design and delivery, with most studies reporting on tabletop exercise evaluation results. We identified ten sub-themes on how to strengthen exercises with a focus on how scenarios are developed, how participants are selected and organized during an exercise, thoughtful selection and training of exercise facilitators, selecting evaluation methods that closely align with the purpose of the exercise, and the importance of embedding activities that will encourage pathways to improvement.
Findings from this review can be utilized in practice to enhance the design of emergency preparedness exercises. There are several gaps that should inform future work, including the need for additional studies focused on exercises conducted within the public health agency context, as well as more rigorous research to strengthen knowledge regarding evidence-informed practices in this area. There is a need for more guidance on triggers for conducting exercises, additional research on innovative technologies and approaches to enhance participant engagement, and guidance on incorporating evidence-based frameworks and indicators to improve exercise design and evaluation.
应急准备演练对于构建一个有韧性的公共卫生系统至关重要，该系统能够应对日益频繁和复杂的公共卫生风险。本快速综述描述了可增强全灾种应急准备演练的循证实践或原则，特别关注公共卫生机构背景。
系统检索了四个数据库，包括MEDLINE、Embase、全球卫生数据库和护理学与健康领域数据库（2013年1月至2024年6月），并辅以灰色文献检索。纳入的研究需以英文发表，来自经济合作与发展组织成员国，与公共卫生机构背景相关，且报告的结果与我们的主要研究问题一致。根据研究设计对纳入的文章进行质量评估。分析包括描述性总结和主题分析。
该综述确定了15项报告了优化演练设计与实施见解的研究，大多数研究报告了桌面演练评估结果。我们确定了10个关于如何加强演练的子主题，重点关注情景的开发方式、演练期间参与者的选择和组织方式、精心挑选和培训演练主持人、选择与演练目的紧密匹配的评估方法，以及开展有助于改进途径的活动的重要性。
本综述的结果可在实践中用于改进应急准备演练的设计。存在几个应指导未来工作的差距，包括需要更多聚焦于公共卫生机构背景下开展的演练的研究，以及更严谨的研究以加强该领域循证实践的知识。需要更多关于开展演练触发因素的指导、关于增强参与者参与度的创新技术和方法的更多研究，以及关于纳入基于证据的框架和指标以改进演练设计和评估的指导。
