But the report concluded that gaps in preparedness still remain.
"The United State often takes a Band-Aid approach to public health preparedness," the paper stated. "As new emergencies and concerns emerge and attention shifts, it often means that resources are diverted from one pressing priority to another, leaving other ongoing areas unaddressed."
Among the ongoing concerns:
• A large-scale emergency would still overwhelm the national health care system; more attention should be directed toward developing alternative care systems.
• The country still lacks an integrated national approach to surveillance, with no consistency in collecting and reporting local findings.
• Despite success in rapidly developing the H1N1 flu vaccine, the country needs to partner with manufacturers to rev up production of antiviral medications, diagnostic equipment, and vaccines.
• A current shortage of health care workers, projected to become more severe as experienced staff approaches retirement, threatens to impair research, care, and emergency response. That is linked to funding issues – in the past 2 years, there has been a 15% reduction in public health staff across the country.
• National and local budget cuts continue to impede – and even jeopardize – emergency preparedness efforts. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, states are down $425 billion in public health funding since 2009.
Mr. Daschle, whose office was one of the anthrax targets, spoke to this issue in the document. "It is essential that the Congress provide all of the necessary funding for research and development of appropriate counter-bioterrorism measures," he wrote.
If the federal government lets its financial commitment to emergency preparedness slip now, the paper concluded, the country could lose much of what has been gained since 2001.
"The current economic climate and budget cuts at the federal, state, and local levels mean that the progress made over the past decade could be lost," the report’s authors stated. "Until public health emergency preparedness receives sufficient, sustained funding, Americans will continue to be needlessly at risk for a range of public health threats."
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation funded the report.