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Mike Mitka

JAMA. 2005;294:1884-1889.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

Even as Hurricane Katrina was demonstrating that the US government was not ready for a major disaster, researchers announced findings they said suggested that many public health agencies would not respond quickly to an infectious disease outbreak that might occur from natural causes or bioterrorism.

A new study found much variation in the response of local public health agencies to telephone calls indicating potential outbreaks resulting from natural causes or bioterrorism.

Researchers affiliated with RAND Corp, a nonprofit research organization based in Santa Monica, Calif, tested how quickly local public health agencies in 18 states responded to a series of telephone calls regarding potential infectious disease outbreaks and found "substantial variability in performance and in the systems in place." Of the 19 local agencies sampled, eight consistently met the federal guideline of responding to such calls within 30 minutes, and only two of these immediately transferred all callers . . . [Full Text of this Article]

VARIED RESPONSE