Challenges of Designing and Implementing High Consequence Infectious Disease Response

Ebola is a high consequence infectious disease-a disease with the potential to cause outbreaks, epidemics, or pandemics with deadly possibilities, highly infectious, pathogenic, and virulent. Ebola's first reported cases in the United States in September 2014 led to the development of preparedness capabilities for the mitigation of possible rapid outbreaks, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) providing guidelines to assist public health officials in infectious disease response planning. These guidelines include broad goals for state and local agencies and detailed information concerning the types of resources needed at health care facilities. However, the spatial configuration of populations and existing health care facilities is neglected. An incomplete understanding of the demand landscape may result in an inefficient and inequitable allocation of resources to populations. Hence, this paper examines challenges in implementing CDC's guidance for Ebola preparedness and mitigation in the context of geospatial allocation of health resources and discusses possible strategies for addressing such challenges. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2018;12:563-566).