Details:

Alternative Title:
BMC Res Notes
Personal Author:
Donovan, Catherine V ; Markiewicz, Milissa ; Horney, Jennifer A
Donovan, Catherine V ; Markiewicz, Milissa ; Horney, Jennifer A Less -
Description:
Background

In 2011, seven decentralized Public Health Regional Surveillance Teams (PHRSTs) were restructured into four centralized Public Health Preparedness and Response (PHP&R) regional offices to realign preparedness priorities and essential services with appropriate infrastructure; field-based staff was reduced, saving approximately $1 million. The objective of this study was to understand the impact that restructuring had on services provided to local health departments (LHDs) throughout North Carolina.

Methods

A survey to document services that regional offices provide to LHDs in North Carolina was administered by the North Carolina Preparedness and Emergency Response Research Center in 2013. The results were compared to a similar survey from 2009, which identified services provided by regional teams prior to restructuring.

Results

Of 69 types of assistance, 14 (20%) were received by 50% or more LHDs in 2012. Compared to 2009, there was a significant decrease in the proportion of LHDs receiving 67% (n = 47) of services. The size of the region served by regional offices was shown to inversely impact the proportion of LHDs receiving services for 25% of services. There was a slight significant decline in perceived quality of the services provided by regional teams in 2012 as comparison to 2009.

Conclusions

Following a system-wide review of preparedness in North Carolina, the state’s regional teams were reorganized to refine their focus to planning, exercises, and training. Some services, most notably under the functions of epidemiology and surveillance and public health event response, are now provided by other state offices. However, the study results indicate that several services that are still under the domain of the regional offices were received by fewer LHDs in 2012 than 2009. This decrease may be due to the larger number of counties now served by the four regional offices.


Subjects:
[+]
Cross-Sectional Studies Disaster Planning Public Health Practice
Source:
BMC Res Notes. 2014; 7:319.
Pubmed ID:
24886311
Pubmed Central ID:
PMC4047551
Document Type:
Journal Article
Funding:
P05 TP 000296-01/TP/OPHPR CDC HHS/United States
Place as Subject:
North Carolina
Collection(s):
CDC Public Access
Main Document Checksum:
[+]
urn:sha256:6a3be6c6c0b0cbe3cd32da8a0325fda842bc0d9994523668a24142a869e0aa3a
Download URL:
https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/32167/cdc_32167_DS1.pdf
File Type:

Supporting Files

• 	1756-0500-7-319.nxml	txt
  	license.txt	txt

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