Accreditation and emergency preparedness: linkages and opportunities for leveraging the connections

Public health officials must frequently demonstrate the quality and value of public health services, especially during challenging fiscal climates. One of the ways that public health quality and accountability have been demonstrated is through the use of accreditation and standard setting initiatives.

The objective of this analysis was to identify existing alignment opportunities between standards established by the Public Health Accreditation Board (PHAB) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC's) public health preparedness (PHP) capabilities in order to optimize and leverage the connections for state and local public health professionals.

During March-May 2012, a PHAB/PHP crosswalk was developed by a research team from the CDC's Office for State, Tribal, Local and Territorial Support and Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response's Division of State and Local Readiness to examine the intersection of the PHP capabilities and the PHAB standards. The PHAB/PHP crosswalk used the CDC Public Health Preparedness Capabilities: National Standards for State and Local Planning (PHP Capabilities) and the PHAB Standards and Measures, Version 1.0 (PHAB Standards) as its source documents. To help illustrate the results of the crosswalk, alignment was also depicted through a network graph to transform the results into a visual depiction of the linkages between PHP capabilities and PHAB standards.

The most direct links to emergency preparedness were found in PHAB Domains 2 and 5. Opportunities for improved alignment were found throughout the standard documents, particularly in PHAB Domains 3, 8, and 11. The most direct links to accreditation were found in PHP capabilities 1, 2, 3, and 4.

The results highlight the synergy between the infrastructure and foundational elements represented by accreditation and targeted programmatic activities supported by preparedness funding.