Responding to Public Health Emergencies at the Local Level: Administrative Preparedness Challenges, Strategies, and Resources.

This manuscript summarizes the most common barriers to effective administrative preparedness and how to surmount them through the use of promising practices, strategies, and NACCHO developed resources focused on addressing unique jurisdictional requirements and needs.

The Local Health Department Mandate and Capacity for Community Engagement in Emergency Preparedness: A National View Over Time.

Context: Local health departments (LHDs) perform the highly valued, yet time- and staff-intensive work of community engagement in public health emergency preparedness (CE-PHEP) when the Great Recession has had lingering effects on their organizational capacity.

Objective: Track the extent to which LHDs still embrace collaborative, whole community approaches to PHEP in a historically low resource environment.

Design: National survey in 2015 of LHDs using a self-administered online questionnaire regarding LHD practices and resources for CE-PHEP first fielded in 2012 ("The Community Engagement for Public Health Emergency Preparedness Survey").

High-Performing Local Health Departments Relate Their Experiences at Community Engagement in Emergency Preparedness.

Context: Local health departments (LHDs) are implementing a national mandate to engage community partners, including individuals, businesses, and community- and faith-based organizations in the larger public health emergency preparedness (PHEP) enterprise.

Objective: Investigate how LHDs of varying size and resource levels successfully engage the community in PHEP to help uncover "best practices" that aspiring agencies can replicate, particularly in low-resource environments.

Design: In-depth, semistructured qualitative interviews with practitioners from 9 highly performing LHDs.

Putting the Law Into Practice: A Comparison of Isolation and Quarantine As Tools to Control Tuberculosis and Ebola.

The recent Ebola epidemic has put the words "isolation and quarantine" in the spotlight. Isolation and quarantine are tools that are often utilized by public health officials around the United States to address various types of infectious disease, including tuberculosis. While voluntary compliance is preferred, it can be difficult to achieve.