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Enhancing Crisis Leadership in Public Health Emergencies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 September 2013

Scott Deitchman
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Abstract

Reviews of public health emergency responses have identified a need for crisis leadership skills in health leaders, but these skills are not routinely taught in public health curricula. To develop criteria for crisis leadership in public health, published sources were reviewed to identify attributes of successful crisis leadership in aviation, public safety, military operations, and mining. These sources were abstracted to identify crisis leadership attributes associated with those disciplines and compare those attributes with crisis leadership challenges in public health. Based on this review, the following attributes are proposed for crisis leadership in public health: competence in public health science; decisiveness with flexibility; ability to maintain situational awareness and provide situational assessment; ability to coordinate diverse participants across very different disciplines; communication skills; and the ability to inspire trust. Of these attributes, only competence in public health science is currently a goal of public health education. Strategies to teach the other proposed attributes of crisis leadership will better prepare public health leaders to meet the challenges of public health crises. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2013;0:1–7)

Keywords

crisis leadershipdisaster planningemergency managementleadershippublic health
Type
Commentary
Information
Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness , Volume 7 , Issue 5 , October 2013 , pp. 534 - 540
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Disaster Medicine and Public Health, Inc. This is a work of the U.S. Government and is not subject to copyright protection in the United States. 2013 

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