In this instance, regardless of the public announcement that the state was following World Health Organization protocol, the public was furious. Public distrust continued when the new vaccine arrived, as the media had implied in previous reports that the vaccine was "rushed" through production. The public fears and responses that happened could have been mitigated through more scheduled town hall public meetings, where citizens are free to vent all concerns. The second tasks assigned was that of benchmarking with other states on their methods and processes in handling the outbreak and utilizing those best practices in Tennessee. For this assignment Tennessee focused their communications and research on the state of Texas. Texas was at the front lines of the outbreak and had implemented a successful program to distribute anti-viral medications through a partnership with private pharmacies. This strategy was immediately adopted and adapted to Tennessee's individual situation.

The final requirement of the taskforce was to ensure that the state was in compliance with the U.S. National Strategy for Pandemics. While Tennessee as a state focused on mitigating the spread of...

The national strategy hinged primarily on the timely development and release of H1N1 vaccines. Initially these vaccines were ordered to arrive from England. However, production of the vaccines was halted by the British government resulting in a need to produce the vaccines locally. While this crises was occurring on the federal level, the taskforce reviewed daily updates from the federal offices on everything from vaccine updates to school closures.
Thesis

Despite the Tennessee Department of Health's (TDH) implementation of proactive and reactive public health policies to manage the H1N1 pandemic outbreak in Tennessee, improvements are needed to their pandemic influenza response plan.

Purpose

The purpose of this report is to provide background information; analyze inter- and intra-agency coordination, the management of vaccine testing, ordering, and distribution, and communications issue; and provide recommendations to better equip the state of Tennessee with an effective response of a future pandemic threat.