Title: Commentary: Global Preparedness for Public Health Emergencies
Abstract: There are many reasons to be interested in public health in China. China is the single most populous nation on earth and was the point of origin for SARS and probably for most pandemic influenza viruses, past and future. In this issue of the Journal, we get a valuable window into the organization of public health emergency preparedness in China in the form of the paper, Preparing and responding to public health emergencies in China: Results of a focus group study. This paper summarizes the results of focus groups conducted with 47 localand provincial-level public health officials, and includes some of the most complete information on Chinese public health emergency preparedness at the working level. That makes it an invaluable contribution to the growing literature on public health emergency preparedness. One of the most notable aspects of the paper is the remarkable candor shown by the participants as they discussed their experiences. There are, of course, a number of issues identified. Among them are understaffing and underfunding, the limited leverage of public health to obtain cooperation from other agencies, communications between different agencies and jurisdictions, and inconsistencies in defining criteria for emergency planning and response. Perhaps the biggest surprise is the relative universality of the problems identified. Few, if any, of the problems discussed are unique to China. Those who have followed the development of public health emergency preparedness have witnessed the United States and other countries go through the very same process, and many of the frustrations voiced by colleagues