Using Implementation Teams to Inform a More Effective Response to Future Pandemics

Emerging viral pandemics place extraordinary and sustained demands on health, social care, and economic systems across the globe. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends a combination of evidence-based interventions for the active and rapid extinction of local outbreaks. To use these interventions in various contexts, concerted, coordinated action is needed within and across countries. The variable response to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic raises a critical question about the existence of the necessary mechanisms to coordinate these types of complex responses to humanitarian crises. With each threat that substantially disrupts large, dispersed populations, the arguments for investing in the development and integration of needed capacity within health and social care systems have been strengthened. The field of implementation science can make a meaningful contribution by guiding how to build the capacity to use measures for prevention, containment, and elimination of disease outbreaks and other humanitarian crises.