COVID-19 The Voices of Public Health Leaders after a Year of Response

COVID-19: The Voices of Public Health Leaders after a Year of Response is a compilation of interviews conducted with state and local public health officials who were on the front lines of responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. Interviews were conducted in the style of an after-action review during the summer of 2021 with a sample of public health officials across the country.

Officials were asked to describe what worked and what didn't work in their response to the pandemic. Responses to the interviews are outlined according to the many public health functions that were undertaken during the pandemic including surveillance, testing, quarantine and isolation, other public health non-pharmaceutical interventions, and vaccine distribution. For each function proposed improvements for the next pandemic are provided.

This book offers scientists and interested persons orientation and helps to decipher statements from governments and authorities. It will help professionals involved in the approval, planning, implementation and evaluation of COVID-19 studies to distinguish meaningful from pointless.

• Provides the readers the experience of their peers, to measure their own responses against
• Organized by key public health functions in an infectious disease emergency
• Presents a systematic collection of the perspectives of those leading the public health response across the United States

1. Brief History of Pandemic Planning and Response in the U.S.
2. Methods
3. Emergency Operations and Coordination
4. Testing
5. Case Investigation and Contact Tracing
6. Novel Surveillance Efforts
7. Quarantine & Isolation
8. Other Non-pharmaceutical Interventions
9. Coordination with Health Care
10. Communications
11. Vaccine Rollout
12. Looking Forward to the Next Pandemic

Dr. Kimberley Shoaf DrPH, MPH is Professor in the Division of Public Health and Associate Chief for Community Engaged Scholarship. She has more than 30 years of experience in public health practice including experience as a health educator, trainer, and researcher. She has particular expertise in program planning and evaluation applicable to both general public health practice and emergency public health. She has worked with more than 50 local health departments in preparing for responding to disasters through training, assessments, and exercises as well as in writing of plans. She has both a research and an educational focus on workforce development within public health and primary care. Dr. Shoaf received her Master of Public Health degree in Population and Family Health and a DrPH in Community Health Sciences from the Fielding School of Public Health at the University of California, Los Angeles.