LAUSR

In December 2007, we traveled to Springfield, Illinois, to engage more than 150 physicians, state and local public health officials, university officials, judges, and attorneys in a scenario exercise to prepare for a future influenza pandemic The event was organized by the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) It was just one of the numerous workshops and stakeholder meetings on pandemic influenza that we would facilitate and/or participate in both domestically and internationally that year as part of the University of North Carolina Center for Public Health Preparedness (UNC CPHP) A primary mission of centers such as the UNC CPHP, which opened in 2003, was to link university faculty members and public health practitioners by bringing academic rigor to state and local health departments, adding qualified state and local public health professionals to the faculty, and influencing scholarly research and its translation to real-world action These partnerships provided students a window into health security, thereby inspiring them to devote their careers to threats such as COVID-19 through government service 1 The UNC CPHP was one of a network of 27 Centers for Public Health Preparedness that grew from the events after 9/11, when health emerged as a national security concern 2 Consequently, substantial federal investment in domestic health security transformed and modernized public health, especially after passage of the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act in 2006 mandated research to improve federal, state, local, and tribal public health preparedness and response systems