Kansas improving in 2019 National Health Security Preparedness Index

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has released its 2019 National Health Security Preparedness Index and the Sunflower State is improving.

“As Kansas goes, so goes the rest of the nation,” said Glen Mays, PhD from the University of Kentucky. “Kansas has been making steady improvement in putting health security protections in place to be prepared for emergencies and disasters. They now score a 6.7 on the 10 point scale, right in line with the national average.”

That’s an a 11.7% increase from 2013.

“They’re building strong networks, collaborative networks, of all the government agencies and private organizations that need to play a role in preparing for and responding to emergencies,” said Mays.

Kansas’s largest improvement occurred in the Incident & Information Management domain, which increased by 27% between 2013-18. This is better than the rate nationwide, which was at 10.1% in the same period.

“Our two biggest challenges are first of all, the rate of improvement is relatively slow,” said Mays. “We really need to look at ways of improving faster over time. Secondly, the improvement is very uneven across the country. We’ve got pockets around the country that are really underprepared, that are not making as much progress.”

Originally developed by the CDC as a tool to drive dialogue to improve health security and preparedness, the Index is a collaborative effort funded by RWJF involving more than 30 organizations.