The Institute of Medicine's Roundtable on Environmental Health Sciences, Research, and Medicine and the National Research Council's Disasters Roundtable were formed to provide a neutral setting for individuals with different backgrounds and perspectives to discuss sensitive issues of mutual interest. 

These two Roundtables jointly sponsored a workshop, summarized in this report, that considered issues related to health risks of disasters.  To explore the capacity needs for addressing health risk during disasters, the speakers, participants, and Roundtable members considered how the United States will rise to meet these challenges and what research and training priorities for communication, infrastructure, and preparedness were needed to strengthen its response to health-related risks.

The workshop highlighted many improvements made in the nation's risk communication strategies, and its enhanced capabilities to acquire, store, and distribute pharmaceuticals and medical supplies to the public since September 11th.  However, workshop participants stressed the importance of addressing the gaps and shortfalls in current emergency management policies. 

A number of challenges continue to exist as pointed out by many of the speakers and the participants, including:

• The acknowledgment that disasters may destroy local health infrastructure when it is needed most.
• The concern that the public health workforce is nearing retirement age; thus, there is a critical need for training the next generation of responders.
• The need to engage the private sector in preparedness planning and communication channels for access to information in order to safeguard individuals at work.
• The need to plan for management of facilities and personnel during sustained crises.