Bloomberg School
A Bloomberg School study on emergency response behavior in hospitals recently received an evaluation from the , a recognition that places the work in the top two percent of published articles in biology and medicine.
The study, “Characterizing Hospital Workers' Willingness to Respond to a Radiological Event,” was co-authored by , MD, MPH, , MSEd, and , PhD, of the in collaboration with lead author Ran Balicer of Ben-Gurion University in Israel.
in PLoS ONE on October 27, 2011, the study describes hospital workers’ willingness to respond to a radiological dispersal device (or “dirty bomb”) event. The authors suggest that a high proportion (39 percent) of hospital workers may choose not to respond to a dirty bomb event and that several attributes, including their willingness to work extra hours, are very strongly associated with this lack of willingness.
Terrorist use of dirty bombs, which combine a conventional explosive device with radiological material, is a serious threat, and understanding hospital workers’ willingness to respond is important for emergency preparedness planning.
Nelson Chao of Duke University Medical Center, who provided the , noted that, “An effective medical response requires the concerted efforts of an entire medical infrastructure that includes every member of a hospital, especially if the health care needs may last for many months.”
Articles are selected to be in the Faculty of 1000 by a peer-nominated group of the world's leading scientists and clinicians.
Media contact: Tim Parsons, director of Public Affairs, at 410-955-7619 or tmparson@jhsph.edu.