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December 18, 2007
Little Rock -- Trust for America’s Health (TFAH) today released its fifth annual report on national preparedness. The report, titled “Ready or Not? Protecting the Public’s Health from Disease, Disasters, and Bioterrorism” found that while important progress has been made, critical areas of the nation’s emergency health preparedness effort still require attention. In addition, the continuing trend of annual cuts in federal funding for state and local preparedness activities threatens the nation’s safety.
The “Ready or Not?” report contains state-by-state health preparedness scores based on 10 key indicators to assess health emergency preparedness capabilities. All 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia (D.C.) were evaluated.
Arkansas’s score was initially reported incorrectly as six out of ten, but has since been upgraded to a seven out of ten. The state’s score for its Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) plan is actually above the national standard, according to the March 2007 CDC evaluation of the program.
“We are one of the few states that not only has a plan on paper, but exercises our plan robustly,” Halverson said.
According to Paul Halverson, Dr PH, State Health Director, the report highlights the state’s strengths in an area that is critical for public health. “We’ve shown significant improvement in the last year, and we are confident that we will be moving into ranking that will place us near the top for our preparedness as measured by TFAH here in Arkansas,” Halverson said.
Arkansas has recently received national recognition from the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO) ASTHO and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for being the only state in the nation to distribute meds in every county in the state to over 100,000 people in a 3-day period. While a number of states conducted statewide drills of this kind, Anna Deblois of ASTHO said “Arkansas is far and away the most impressive example. No one else has come close to vaccinating that many people.”
“Especially with events like our response following Hurricane Katrina, the people of Arkansas can be proud of the way we have performed in real-world efforts over the last several years,” Halverson said. “We think that our work with the National Guard, other state, county and local agencies and the network of private providers shows that Arkansans have stepped up to the plate whenever the need called for us to perform.”
Arkansas has also upgraded its Public Health Lab over the last two years, and now has one of the most modern labs in the country. The CDC has recently designated it one of the regional testing sites for pandemic flu.
“Thanks to the legislature’s leadership and support, seasonal flu protection will continue to be a key focus for the Health Department Arkansans,” Halverson said. “The Legislature has enacted legislation that mandates that we protect our senior citizens in nursing homes by vaccinating all residents. Private providers in Arkansas also have increased their efforts with effective vaccination programs.”
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