Cover of Review of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Smallpox Vaccination Program Implementation

Review of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Smallpox Vaccination Program Implementation

Letter Report # 6

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Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); .
Copyright 2004 by the National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
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This report may seem like a departure from the committee's previous work, which focused on smallpox vaccination as a part of public health preparedness. However, this report responds to a CDC request for guidance as the agency moves toward comprehensive preparedness for bioterrorism and other public health disasters, and toward broad smallpox preparedness efforts. The committee was asked to look specifically at preparedness exercises, which are required by CDC grant guidance and are being conducted by public health agencies. In general, the public health community has somewhat limited experience with exercises, so the committee was asked to describe the state of the science in evaluation of exercises, to identify leadership and experience to build on, and to identify issues or concerns about the use of exercises as a means to performance measurement.