The aim of this project is to promote bioterrorism and other public health emergency preparedness with respect to intermediate and long-term health needs, including long-term care, rehabilitation, chronic physical ailments, and mental health. This proposal integrates qualitative (key informant interviews, network analysis, and focus groups) and quantitative (knowledge-based testing) methodologies to assess existing resources and response mechanisms in rural and neighboring urban communities to meet anticipated health needs arising from bioterrorist events. Given the particularly limited resources available in rural communities, we will examine how urban providers can serve a supportive role for rural communities following bioterrorist events. The evidence obtained from these assessments will serve as the basis for models and recommendations to policy-makers to improve bioterrorism preparedness in rural communities across the nation. The assessments will highlight special concerns of certain priority populations, including women, children and families, and frail elders. We will also develop an intervention to educate health care providers concerning important aspects of mental health care, since comparatively less attention has been paid to the mental health needs of rural communities in the wake of such major catastrophic events. Prior experience with natural disasters suggests that first responders typically focus on immediate medical trauma or injury, leaving rural communities to struggle with the burden of unmet mental health needs both in the immediate aftermath and over the longer term. The educational intervention will be an additional tool that can be replicated in other communities. This study will therefore have substantial benefits for policy-makers and providers by linking structure, process, and outcomes. Since structural and organizational features are often more amenable to change through policy than individual behavior, our models will allow policy-makers, administrators and providers to target resources in the most efficient way possible in order to achieve the most effective outcomes.
| Putzer, Gavin J; Koro-Ljungberg, Mirka; Duncan, R Paul et al. (2013) Preparedness of rural physicians for bioterrorist events in Florida. South Med J 106:21-6 |
| Putzer, Gavin J; Koro-Ljungberg, Mirka; Duncan, R Paul (2012) Critical challenges and impediments affecting rural physicians during a public health emergency. Disaster Med Public Health Prep 6:342-8 |
