Modeling Bioterrorism and Disaster Preparedness: SMDM’s Recommendations for Design and Reporting

Three related articles in this issue deal with mod-eling of bioterrorism and disaster preparedness. The article by Michael Washington1 uses a discrete event simulation model to evaluate the capability and cost of a mass influenza and pneumococcal vaccination clinic. This analysis demonstrates how computer simulation could aid public health officials in determining the most efficient use of staff, machinery, supplies, and time. In a second article, Hupert and colleagues2 evaluate the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) Cities Readiness Initiative by using a discrete-time state transition model to represent the interaction between disease progression of inhalational anthrax and the rate of dispensing prophylactic antibiotics in an exposed population. Their findings highlight that i