Applying the Ready, Willing, and Able Framework to Assess Agency Public Health Emergency Preparedness: The CDC Perspective

Abstract

Public health emergencies in the United States have been complex, frequent, and increasingly costly in the past decade, at times overwhelming government agencies that are primarily resourced for routine, nonemergency health functions. Emergencies are not always predictable, and adequate resources are not always available to prepare staff in advance for emergency response roles and to mobilize them quickly when a new threat emerges. Additionally, real-world data that connect preparedness levels to response outcomes may be difficult to obtain, further limiting continuous quality improvement efforts by public health officials. In this article, we apply the Ready, Willing, and Able (RWA) framework to identify areas for improvement related to organizational and staff readiness, willingness, and ability to respond during a public health emergency. We share emergency response deployment, training, and personnel data collected as part of emergency response activations (2008 to 2018) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to illustrate how the framework may be applied at government agencies to improve response processes and effectiveness. Additionally, we propose potential metrics aligned with the framework constructs that may help emergency managers consistently assess agency preparedness and, over time, be incorporated into broader standardized measurement methods. We conclude that the RWA framework is a practical tool that can complement other preparedness approaches currently in use at government public health agencies.