Preparedness Emergency Response Research Centers (PERRCs): Addressing Public Health Preparedness Knowledge Gaps Using a Public Health Systems Perspective

Evaluating the impact of research investments in the creation of knowledge in any area ofwork is challenging; even more so is evaluating the impact of research programs in emerging fields because ofa lack ofpreexisting data and parameters. In the case of public health emergency preparedness (PHEP), the major difficulty is that this field of research is vast in terms of the number of disciplines included, and it comprises a variety of methods. Such methods are often tailored to address the diversity of local practice needs within specific public health systems, frequently leading to limited applicability and transferability to other geographic areas or response settings.In 2008, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) created the Preparedness Emergency Response Research Centers (PERRCs) program to address public health preparedness knowledge gaps using a public health systems perspective. This program represents the first major federal investment in public health systems research in preparedness and to our knowledge is the largest worldwide. It's been a decade since the start of this initiative, and we believe evaluation efforts are necessary to determine how to plan, organize, and advance future research in PHEP. In this editorial, we embrace the challenge to evaluate and discuss the contribution of the PERRCs program to knowledge production in this field.