Introduction: From 2009 to 2016, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) activated its Incident Management System for a public health emergency 91 percent of the time. The CDC must ensure its workforce is prepared for the evolving nature of emergencies.Objectives: The purpose of this assessment was to identify perceived preparedness and response training needs for the CDC responder workforce.Methods: Between November 2012 and January 2013, focus groups and in-depth interviews were conducted with CDC responders, including senior leaders. The evaluation questions were: (1) How well does the current training system prepare CDC staff to respond to emergency events? (2) What gaps exist in the current training system? and (3) What trainings are essential and should be included in the training system?Results: Eight focus groups were conducted with 51 responders and 18 interviews with response leaders. Themes were identified for each main outcome measure and translated to training improvements.Conclusions: The CDC workforce received foundational training. Recommendations are provided to better prepare responders during an emergency. Periodic assessments are necessary to expand training and remain responsive to the complexities of emerging threats.

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During emergency responses, public health leaders frequently serve in incident management roles that differ from their routine job functions. Leaders’ familiarity with incident management principles and functions can influence response outcomes. Therefore, training and exercises in incident management are often required for public health leaders. To describe existing methods of incident management training and exercises in the literature, we queried 6 English language databases and found 786 relevant articles. Five themes emerged: (1) experiential learning as an established approach to foster engaging and interactive learning environments and optimize training design; (2) technology-aided decision support tools are increasingly common for crisis decision-making; (3) integration of leadership training in the education continuum is needed for developing public health response leaders; (4) equal emphasis on competency and character is needed for developing capable and adaptable leaders; and (5) consistent evaluation methodologies and metrics are needed to assess the effectiveness of educational interventions. These findings offer important strategic and practical considerations for improving the design and delivery of educational interventions to develop public health emergency response leaders. This review and ongoing real-world events could facilitate further exploration of current practices, emerging trends, and challenges for continuous improvements in developing public health emergency response leaders.

Objective: We aimed to understand the current training environment for developing public health emergency response leaders and highlight facilitators and barriers in accessing targeted training. Design: We designed 4 focus groups to gather organizational perspectives on public health emergency response leadership development. Discussions were recorded, transcribed, coded, and analyzed to synthesize key themes. Setting: Focus groups were convened at the 2019 Preparedness Summit (March 27-28) in St Louis, Missouri. Participants: Twenty-three public health professionals from 9 Public Health Emergency Preparedness (PHEP) Cooperative Agreement award recipient jurisdictions and 12 local health departments participated. Main Outcome Measures: We examined the current availability, relevance, specificity, and utility of educational content and delivery modalities. Facilitators and barriers were identified as opportunities to improve training access. Results: Generic emergency management training is considered important and widely available but with limited application in public health practice. Existing leadership training opportunities in public health emergency response are limited and not widely known. While organizational support and accessible training facilitate participation, resource constraints (ie, funding, time, and staff) exist as key barriers. In addition, frequent staff turnover and attrition that result in loss of institutional knowledge likely hinder effective public health emergency responses. Conclusion:Effective public health emergency response depends on capable leaders not only well versed in specialized technical disciplines and practices but also familiar with-or preferably fluent in-emergency management principles and functions. This study demonstrated that well-aimed training strategies and organizational planning are essential in developing public health emergency response leaders. Specifically, leadership development may accrue considerable benefit from a standardized training curriculum. In addition, scalable training programs developed through public, private, and academic partnerships may lessen resource demands on individual organizations to facilitate training access. Finally, training practicums (eg, mentoring, shadowing) may provide opportunities to facilitate active learning and preserve institutional knowledge through leadership transitions.