Evaluating How Well State, Local Health Departments Minimized the Spread of H1N1

Did state and local health departments do a good job keeping the spread of H1N1 to a minimum this year? I’m sure this question will be debated for months to come.

When an emergency manager asked me this question, I responded: “How do we do protecting the citizens from harm during tornadoes, floods, ice storms and other disasters?” In other words, it’s hard to monitor the effectiveness when it comes to inclement weather conditions and H1N1 mitigation efforts. It’s difficult to effectively measure how well we communicated our concerns to the public and if citizens did enough to protect themselves and their families.

The following are the messages we tried to convey to the public. The answers to these questions could go a long way to determine how well we combated H1N1 and if we’re out of the woods yet:

• Did the unprecedented turnout for seasonal vaccine, completely exhausting our flu supplies, stop the spread of influenza?
• Did our stay-at-home-when-sick, wash hands, cough-in-sleeve campaigns work?
• Did the proactive steps taken by education and public health officials to close schools work?
• Did faith-based organizations minimize certain influenza pathogens when their congregation stayed home or was it preventive measures taken at churches?
• Did proactive steps to ensure minimum contamination during shelter operations work?
• Did inclement weather during the Dec. 24, 2009, blizzard curtail transmission by causing family members not to gather for the holiday season?
• Did our crisis communications provide citizens with enough information to let them make informed decisions to decrease transmission?

All of these measures could or should have limited the spread of this year’s seasonal flu and H1N1. It’s hard to determine if we dodged the bullet or if we did an outstanding job amply warning the public, which allowed citizens to take preventive measures.

Studies by Harvard and Yale universities show that public health officials were credible and proactive steps were taken during the H1N1 crisis. As more surveys and analysis are conducted, we’ll better know how we did against H1N1 and how we compare against a future wave.

Ed Kostiuk joined the Oklahoma State Department of Health’s Emergency Preparedness and Response Service in 2003. He serves as the department’s emergency manager, response coordinator, and health and medical liaison to FEMA Region VI Emergency Operations Centers.
 
[Photo courtesy of C. S. Goldsmith and A. Balish, CDC.]