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Changes in public health preparedness services provided to local health departments by regional offices in North Carolina: a comparison of two cross-sectional studies

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-ba...

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Autores principales: Donovan, Catherine V, Markiewicz, Milissa, Horney, Jennifer A
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4047551/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24886311
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1756-0500-7-319
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author Donovan, Catherine V
Markiewicz, Milissa
Horney, Jennifer A
author_facet Donovan, Catherine V
Markiewicz, Milissa
Horney, Jennifer A
author_sort Donovan, Catherine V
collection PubMed
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.
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spelling pubmed-40475512014-06-07 Changes in public health preparedness services provided to local health departments by regional offices in North Carolina: a comparison of two cross-sectional studies Donovan, Catherine V Markiewicz, Milissa Horney, Jennifer A BMC Res Notes Research Article 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. BioMed Central 2014-05-28 /pmc/articles/PMC4047551/ /pubmed/24886311 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1756-0500-7-319 Text en Copyright © 2014 Donovan et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research Article
Donovan, Catherine V
Markiewicz, Milissa
Horney, Jennifer A
Changes in public health preparedness services provided to local health departments by regional offices in North Carolina: a comparison of two cross-sectional studies
title Changes in public health preparedness services provided to local health departments by regional offices in North Carolina: a comparison of two cross-sectional studies
title_full Changes in public health preparedness services provided to local health departments by regional offices in North Carolina: a comparison of two cross-sectional studies
title_fullStr Changes in public health preparedness services provided to local health departments by regional offices in North Carolina: a comparison of two cross-sectional studies
title_full_unstemmed Changes in public health preparedness services provided to local health departments by regional offices in North Carolina: a comparison of two cross-sectional studies
title_short Changes in public health preparedness services provided to local health departments by regional offices in North Carolina: a comparison of two cross-sectional studies
title_sort changes in public health preparedness services provided to local health departments by regional offices in north carolina: a comparison of two cross-sectional studies
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4047551/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24886311
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1756-0500-7-319
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