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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Paul A. Biedrzycki, MPH, MBA¹, Mat Wolters, MS¹, Daniel Alexander, MS², and Mark Owen, BS³. (1) Health Department, City of Milwaukee, 841 N. Broadway, 3rd Floor, Milwaukee, WI 53202, 414-286-5787, pbiedr@milwaukee.gov, (2) Department of Administration, City of Milwaukee, 200 E. Wells Street, Milwaukee, WI 53202, (3) Milwaukee Fire Department, City of Milwaukee, 711 W. Wells Street, Milwaukee, WI 53202

The concept of promoting and developing systems for “intelligence fusion” as a means for enhancing early detection of terrorism activity within a community is increasingly gaining a foothold within many state and local jurisdictions. An underlying concept to this approach is creation of “Terrorism Early Warning Systems” (TEWS). TEWS are predicated on the notion that terrorism planning is meticulous and time consuming and therefore prone to observable pre-planning “surrogates”. Observation, reporting, trending and dissemination of TEWS data through intelligence fusion centers to a broad private and public stakeholder audience in the community is the key goal in developing this type of prevention infrastructure.

Intelligence sharing between and within various public and private sector disciplines remains a challenge but can improve terrorism preparedness and prevention efforts. Local Public Health Agencies (LPHAs) can be effective partners in contributing to such initiatives. LPHA assets including the epidemiologic collection, analysis and trending of data that both informs and assists this process. Information on communicable disease and environmental exposures as well as related demographic data can help establish the plausibility and credibility of scenarios created through TEWS from various community signals. LPHA leveraging of medical and other health expertise can enhance the veracity of prevention strategies that are resultant from the fusion process.

Once the realm of law enforcement at the federal level, intelligence fusion is rapidly becoming a fundamental tool to be used at the local level in terrorism prevention. It is essential that LPHAs collaborate and build relationships with traditional public safety agencies.

Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of the session, the participant in this session will be able to

• Describe the fundamental role of a local public health agency in terrorism early warning systems and intelligence fusion centers.
• Define types of public health data and related information that can enhance terrorism early warning systems and the intelligence fusion process within a local community.
• Articulate the types of positions, background and training that a local health department may employ during participation in terrorism early warning systems and the intelligence fusion process.
• Describe the benefits of local public health agency collaboration with law enforcement agencies and others in terrorism early warning systems and intelligence fusion centers.

Keywords: Bioterrorism, Public Health Agency Roles

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Not Answered