The 2016 National Preparedness Index Results were released this week. The Index is an annual assessment of the nation’s health security and preparedness, measuring how prepared we are for managing an emergency. The United States scored a 6.7 on a 10-point scale for preparedness, an improvement of 3.6 percent since the Index began three years ago.
Some key findings include:
- Steady national progress in overall preparedness levels since 2013, with particular strengths exhibited nationwide in incident and information management and in surveillance.
- Encouraging signs of improvement in community planning and engagement nationwide, which is a domain that has scored relatively low in past Index releases.
- Signs of a downward trend in environmental health capabilities nationwide, which merit further attention.
- Considerable geographic variation in preparedness across states, with clusters of states falling below the national average preparedness level in the Deep South and Mountain West, and clusters of above-average states along the East Coast.
- Encouraging state trends with 46 states improving overall preparedness levels since 2013.
