Improving Bioterrorism Response in Los Angeles County: Helping the UCLA Center for Public Health and Disasters Make a Good Plan Better

This Applied Policy Project (APP) focuses on ways to improve response in Los Angeles County (LAC) to a smallpox or plague bioterrorist attack. We are undertaking this study to assist the UCLA Center for Public Health and Disasters (CPHD) with long term planning for this kind of crisis. This APP makes use of publicly available LAC terrorism and emergency plans, academic works, news stories, and forty interviews to thread together how LAC would respond to a smallpox or plague emergency. We divide the paper into four components: patient surge, decision making, dispensing medication, and security. Within each of these four problem areas, we identify specific problems. We then propose possible options and assess these options based upon criteria specific to the individual problem. Throughout the report, we rank an option’s ability to fulfill the criteria and choose the highest ranking options as our recommendations