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A Framework for Training Public Health Practitioners in Crisis Decision-Making

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 November 2015

Harvey Kayman Open the ORCID record for Harvey Kayman [Opens in a new window]  and
Tea Logar
Harvey Kayman*
Affiliation:
University of California School of Public Health, Richmond, California
Tea Logar
Affiliation:
University of California San Francisco.
*
Correspondence and reprint requests to Harvey Kayman, MD, MPH, 1301 Quarry Court #404, Richmond, CA 94801 (e-mail: Hkay20@berkeley.edu).
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Abstract

Three sets of issues tend to be overlooked in public health emergency preparedness and response, which can be addressed with new training protocols. The first issue is procedural and concerns the often intuitive (as opposed to deliberative) nature of effective crisis decision-making. The second issue is substantive and pertains to the incorporation and prioritization of ethical, political, and logistical concerns in public health emergency guidelines. The third issue is affective and concerns human feelings and human frailty, which can derail the most well designed and best practiced procedural and substantive approaches to emergency response. This article offers an outline for a decision-making framework for public health emergencies that addresses and incorporates these issues within relevant guidelines and training. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2016;10:165–173)

Keywords

public health decision-makingdual process (intuition/deliberation)emergency responseethicsincident command system (ICS)
Type
Concepts in Disaster Medicine
Information
Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness , Volume 10 , Issue 1 , February 2016 , pp. 165 - 173
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Disaster Medicine and Public Health, Inc. 2015 

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