Measuring Preparedness

Measuring Preparedness: An Intergovernmental Challenge

INTRODUCTION

Preparing for the unthinkable is one of the biggest challenges we face as a nation. Known as black swan events, they are defined by three key attributes: “First, it is an outlier, as it lies outside the realm of regular expectations…Second; it carries an extreme impact.... Third, in spite of its outlier status, human nature makes us concoct explanations for its occurrence after the fact, making it explainable and predictable.” Understanding progress at all levels of government to deal with these events, in an effort to improve both our security and resilience, remains an elusive component of our national preparedness. Yet understanding this progress is the principle focus of Presidential Policy Directive / PPD-8, issued on March 30, 2011. PPD-8 established a requirement for a National Preparedness Report that focuses on the ability of the whole community to prevent, protect against, mitigate, respond to, and recover from any threat or hazard. This interwoven set of missions, coupled with concerns over a set of threats and hazards that due to their black swan nature have never been experienced, makes it hard to determine the extent of our progress.

Understanding what it means to be prepared in the context of homeland security is one of the biggest challenges confronting public administrators. Our progress toward preparedness – and the resulting resource requirements – has increasingly become a target for budget hawks as the economy shrinks. Our inability to effectively convey our progress as further exacerbated the challenges faced by all communities as they struggle to sustain existing capabilities and build those that are still needed. Since not everything can be measured and all relationships understood, the goal is to find an approach that can estimate the level of the nation’s preparedness reliably. The purpose of this report is to examine existing approaches in literature and identify an...