Dear Colleague:

CPHD is pleased to provide you with a link to the report of the proceedings of the National After Action Workshop on a Federal Public Health Emergency: The Novel Influenza A H1N1 Epidemic of Spring 2009, which was convened on September 21-22, 2009 in Los Angeles.

The abstract of the report follows below, and we invite you and your colleagues and practice partners to obtain their own copy at no cost, by accessing the website of Prehospital and Disaster Medicine, the hosting journal, at http://pdm.medicine.wisc.edu.

We hope to reconvene to revisit these issues and address our responses to both H1N1 and seasonal influenza during the 8th Conference on Public Health and Disasters, which will be held in Los Angeles from May 16-19, 2010. Please check our website for further updates on the May Conference.

With best wishes,

Steven J. Rottman, MD, FACEP
Director, UCLA Center for Public Health and Disasters

Abstract

The introduction of a novel influenza virus into the human population during the spring of 2009 resulted in a series of unprecedented local, state and federal responses. A wide variety of actions were taken to simultaneously define the communicability of the virus, conduct surveillance related to disease impact, and produce containment guidance for health departments, schools, businesses, and the general public even as the spread of this influenza continued to evolve. A two-day workshop was convened on September 21-22, 2009 by the UCLA Center for Public Health and Disasters to explore the actions and decisions taken during the early months of the pandemic. Ninety one leaders from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, state and local health departments, and other agencies engaged in two days of plenary panel presentations and facilitated discussions across four working groups: epidemiology; public health risk communication; local public health actions; and providing health care. Findings of the working groups were discussed in plenary sessions that included all workshop participants. Recommendations were derived from the synthesis of discussions.