A public health academic-practice partnership to develop capacity for exercise evaluation and improvement planning.

In December 2006, Congress passed the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act to improve the nation's public health preparedness and response capabilities. It includes the role of Centers for Public Health Preparedness (CPHPs) to establish a competency-based core curriculum and perform evaluation of impact on newly developed materials. The Heartland Center for Public Health Preparedness (HCPHP) at the Saint Louis University School of Public Health is part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention national CPHP network and is engaged with state and regional partners in workforce development, preparedness planning, evaluation, and multi-year exercise and training cycles. This includes development, implementation, and evaluation of the HCPHP Exercise Evaluation Training Program to improve the competence and capacity for exercise evaluation and improvement planning. This program is designed to enhance quality improvement and performance measurement capabilities to identify increase of workforce competence over time (maturity).