Report: US unprepared for disease outbreaks despite billions spent

THE HILL            by Sarah Ferris                                 Dec.18, 2014

Major gaps exist in the country’s capacity to handle public health crises like Ebola despite massive government spending over the last decade, according to a new report.

Inadequate funding, weak leadership and uneven standards are all putting Americans at risk for infectious diseases, according to an extensive 112-page report by the Trust for America’s Health and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

“Much of the nation’s approach to fighting infectious disease has not been modernized in decades,” the report warns. “There have been troubling errors, lapses and scrambles to recreate practices and policies that were supposed to have been long considered and well established.”

Nearly half of states received failing scores on the National Health Security Preparedness Index, which measures states’ health spending, vaccination rates, food testing and HIV/AIDS prevention....

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http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/227620-researchers-us-unprepared-for-disease-outbreaks-despite-billions-spent

See full report by the Trust for America's Health and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
http://healthyamericans.org/assets/files/Final%20Outbreaks%202014%20Report.pdf