A Case Exercise in Public Health Preparedness: A Community Outbreak of Influenza-like Illness

Public health emergency preparedness has been a priority of local and state health departments as well as other community partners for several years. This article provides a tool for teaching a wide audience of learners the essential steps in training for a disease outbreak. This teaching case involves an investigation of and the community's response to an outbreak of influenza-like illness. Students learn skills in surveillance and hypothesis generation with regard to the outbreak. During the exercise, the learners are divided into teams to develop a response plan. The teams include Command and Coordination, Public Communication, Hospitals and Health Care Providers, Emergency Management and Public Safety, and Public Health. While the teams are developing their response plan, the etiology of the outbreak becomes clear. Once the etiology is known, each of the teams then develops an action plan to minimize the impact of the outbreak.