CAREER: Measuring the Impact of Public Health Supply Chain Coordination Structures on the Effectiveness of Disaster Preparedness and Response

Kansas State University, Manhattan KS

Investigators

Abstract

This Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program research project explores public health supply chain coordination through an iterative process of stakeholder engagement and mathematical modeling and analysis in order to support more effective disaster preparedness and response. The functioning of the US health care and public health sector is essential to the health and economic security of the country. Federal, state, and local government entities, non-governmental organizations, the private sector, and the public are engaged in preparing for and responding to disasters that threaten health directly or indirectly. However, preparedness and response activities can be improved by creating better supply chain coordination among stakeholders. This research will identify and evaluate supply chain coordination structures for the disaster context; and focus on methods to improve mutual awareness of public health and industrial engineering professionals' expertise and opportunities to effect change via interdisciplinary engagement. The results of this research have the potential to translate into more effective use of limited public health preparedness funds and reduced loss of life and livelihood resulting from public health disasters. Modeling efforts will engage practitioners concurrent with broad dissemination of research findings. The integrated education activities will engage students from middle school through doctoral levels and will prepare future engineers to address challenges in public health disaster preparedness and response. The research is centered on three interrelated sets of activities: surveys and interviews with public health disaster response supply chain stakeholders leading to insights into collaborative behavior; mathematical models that draw upon these insights to describe public health supply chain coordination structures; and assessment of research results. In contrast to classical applications, supply chain coordination will be modeled in a cooperative game theoretic framework, in which the models must accommodate multiple objectives, and the benefits need not be super-additive with coalition size. Structural properties in coordination will be characterized and compared, to include consideration of the conditions under which different structures are desirable and fair cost and benefit allocations exist. The computational efficiency of solution approaches will be assessed. Models will be developed, tested, and revised iteratively with input from stakeholders to ensure relevance and support translation from research to practice.