Healthcare

Access to healthcare is critical in maintaining national health security. In the event of a natural disaster or pandemic, increased demand for health and public services, coupled with potentially degraded interdependent infrastructures, may impact the ability of the Sector to adequately meet surge demands during an incident with health consequences.

Community-by-community variations in fiscal health, numbers of at-risk individuals, levels of training in health security, and availability of countermeasures for emerging infectious diseases, among other factors, complicate consequence management. As the 2014-15 Ebola epidemic in West Africa demonstrated, the impact and consequences of an isolated, geographically-distant incident can cascade quickly, becoming widespread.