How Can Pandemic Flu Planning Benefit From Community Engagement?
The government preparations now being made for pandemic flu should rely on community engagement in health disaster policymaking.5,100 The civic infrastructure can help set policy priorities, inform value-laden policy decisions, cement trust between authorities and the public, confirm the feasibility of emergency plans, function as a crisis communications network, and provide operational support during crisis and recovery periods. This section illustrates these capabilities concretely through the dilemmas associated with limited medical options in the event of a moderate-to-severe pandemic flu, accompanied by an outline of how community engagement can help address them.** Collaborative problem solving in the pandemic flu context has already been piloted in the form of public deliberations among citizens at-large and national stakeholders about the best, early use of limited vaccine101 and about potential communitywide control measures to slow flu’s spread.42 Containing the Spread of Con
