What makes health systems resilient against infectious disease outbreaks and natural hazards? Results from a scoping review

Nuzzo, Jennifer B.; Meyer, Diane; Snyder, Michael; Ravi, Sanjana J.; Lapascu, Ana; Souleles, Jon; Andrada, Carolina I.; Bishai, David

All but one of the search results were filtered to include only those articles published during or after 2002, to capture literature emanating in the wake of the SARS epidemic, up until February 2018, the end of the study period. However, one search term did included articles published during or after 1990, to capture more broadly those resources that focused on essential health functions. Only English-language articles were considered. We included documents if they described health system capacities that could potentially strengthen health system resilience to either infectious disease threats or natural hazards. Documents were excluded if they described health capacities that were outside the aims of this research, as defined previously (i.e. articles that were purely about public health capacities that did not mention the relationship of these capacities to the healthcare system). For example, articles that described the importance of a trained epidemiologic workforce (a public health capacity) in outbreak identification and mitigation would be excluded. Articles about the importance of engagement between Ministries of Health and the public would be excluded; however, articles about the importance of engagement between healthcare facilities and Ministries of Health would be included. Documents were also excluded if the article described resilience in contexts outside of natural hazards and infectious disease outbreaks (i.e. armed conflict situations).