Strategic Goal 1: Prepare for Future Public Health Emergencies and Disasters

2022-2026 ASPR Strategic Plan

ASPR must be ready to execute public health and medical missions in response to a wide variety of human-caused and naturally occurring threats and hazards. Preparedness as a process involves a continuous cycle of planning, organizing, training, equipping, exercising, evaluating, and taking corrective action to ensure an effective response. ASPR will continue to prepare for current and future threats by ensuring its portfolio of validated capabilities integrates with and enhances those of federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial (SLTT), and healthcare and public health partners.

ASPR is improving healthcare readiness and our medical surge capacity by leveraging and expanding upon established investments in healthcare preparedness capabilities. ASPR is also working to protect the country against potential known and unknown threats by accelerating the development and stockpiling of lifesaving medical countermeasures (MCMs) that can be readily adapted for and used against new threats. Finally, ASPR is helping communities better anticipate public health and medical needs during disasters by providing comprehensible, data-driven tools that can be used immediately to inform decision-making.

SNS Supplies being off loaded from a supply plane

Objective 1.1: Build resilience when responding to current and anticipated threats.

While we do not know what the next crisis will be, we do know that ASPR will respond. ASPR’s preparedness capabilities must be resilient and adaptable to a wide variety of threats.

Objective 1.1 Key Milestones:

Identify all likely national health security threats—both human-made and naturally occurring—and ensure that ASPR has a response plan in place for each of the threats. In addition, a general set of protocols should be put in place to handle responses to unanticipated threats.
Develop and secure necessary public health emergency and other disaster capabilities, including the needed people, facilities, processes, resources, and assets to prepare for all relevant national health security threats identified above.
Accelerate the advanced development and procurement of MCMs and, in collaboration with our HHS colleagues at CDC and FDA, develop utilization strategies that best protect the nation against future or emerging threats.
Create protocols to expand the healthcare system's ability to surge and adapt during a response, including during novel and simultaneous threats.

Objective 1.2: Protect all members of our communities against an evolving threat landscape.

To protect all members of our communities, equity must be a foremost consideration in ASPR’s preparedness activities, including identifying existing systems that may be contributing to continued inequality.

Objective 1.2 Key Milestones:

Build, support, and sustain a diverse, ready, and resilient public health emergency response workforce that can enhance the activities of the existing public health and healthcare workforce.
Identify the MCMs needed for each potential threat and make sure that use-case scenarios and implementation strategies will result in equality in accessibility, particularly for systemically underserved communities.
Ensure continuity of public health and medical services for all affected members of a community.
Establish and cultivate relationships with community partners who ensure community access during public health threats and disasters.

Objective 1.3: Improve information sharing and transparency with SLTT and private sector partners.

Establishing relationships and lines of communication with SLTT and private sector partners prior to an incident is an essential element of preparedness. During an emergency, the need to communicate is immediate and having existing relationships of trust with partners as well as agreed to communication protocols will expedite response efforts.

Objective 1.3 Key Milestones:

Share planning assumptions and capability constraints with SLTT partners well ahead of any emergency and increase coordination at earlier timepoints to ensure actions and MCMs have maximum positive impact to preparedness and response.
Provide timely, straightforward, coordinated, and actionable communications to SLTT and private sector partners both before and during an emergency.
Enable coordination and information sharing across the entire continuum of care to better respond during an emergency.

Objective 1.4: Continually assess and refine disaster response capabilities to better prepare for the next major public health challenge.

During and after a disaster response, there are opportunities to collect lessons-learned to inform planning and enhance future response operations.

Objective 1.4 Key Milestones:

Establish capabilities-based assessments and measurable criteria that routinely evaluate HHS’ readiness and provide a systematic approach to prioritizing resources and mitigating risk to enhance and sustain response-ready support services.
Develop and implement a comprehensive and integrated Mission Assurance Risk Management Framework.
Validate disaster response capabilities through a structured exercise program that cascades from the federal level to the SLTT jurisdictions, including a regional program to plan, develop, and execute Emergency Support Function #8 (ESF #8) exercises.
Conduct active improvement planning by routinely incorporating knowledge from lessons learned into plan revisions, trainings, and exercises.
Coordinate lessons-learned reviews to obtain and incorporate input from key external stakeholders, including public and private sector partners as well as other federal agencies.

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2022-2026 ASPR Strategic Plan