A comparative study of public-health emergency management.

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to study the managing of emergencies pertinent to public health which is critical to the well-being of a society; as such, the management mechanisms employed should be of great interest and significance for research. Design/methodology/approach - This paper first relies on extensive literature to describe the mechanism used in the USA from three aspects - organizational structure, management system, and logistics network. For the purpose of comparison, the Chinese version of the mechanism is presented from the same three aspects. The two management systems are then compared both qualitatively and quantitatively. Findings - Deficient areas in Chinese public-health management mechanism as well as challenging issues associated with supply chain design and coordination for emergency supplies in the context of large-scale public health emergencies with low frequency but catastrophic impacts are found. Specifically, the following three important research problems are revealed from the comparative study: how to establish an efficient organizational structure that incorporates all the relevant entities in public-health emergency management? How to establish an information system for emergency management that integrates disease surveillance, control, and prevention? How to design an efficient and cost-effective logistics network to ensure prompt and sufficient delivery of emergency supplies? Originality/value - To date, this research has been the first of its kind that compares two countries' emergency management systems in the context of public health management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]