A Review and Future Directions for Global Public Health Security Assessment Tools

Area of Science:

• Public Health
• Global Health Security
• Epidemiology

Background:

• National capacities for public health emergency response are assessed using tools like the Global Health Security Index (GHSI), Joint External Evaluation (JEE), and States Parties Self-Assessment Annual Report (SPAR).
• These global assessment tools aim to strengthen worldwide emergency response systems.
• The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted discrepancies between assessment scores and actual country performance.

Purpose of the Study:

• To review the performance of GHSI, JEE, and SPAR during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• To identify fundamental issues undermining the effectiveness of these global health security assessment tools.
• To propose necessary revisions for enhancing the utility of these assessment frameworks.

Main Methods:

• Review of existing literature and performance data of GHSI, JEE, and SPAR during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Analysis of discrepancies between assessment scores and real-world pandemic response outcomes.
• Identification of systemic limitations within the current assessment frameworks.

Main Results:

• Significant discrepancies were observed between assessment scores and countries' actual pandemic response performance.
• Three fundamental issues were identified that compromised the effectiveness of GHSI, JEE, and SPAR evaluations.
• Post-pandemic revisions to indicators across eight technical areas are insufficient, requiring substantial modifications.

Conclusions:

• Existing global health security assessment tools demonstrated limitations in accurately reflecting national capacities during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Systematic revisions are essential, including restructuring indicator architecture, diversifying data sources, enhancing verification, refining weights, and incorporating real-time data.
• Establishing a dynamic monitoring and assessment system is crucial for improving future emergency preparedness and response evaluations.