A public health emergency operations centre (EOC) is a central location for coordinating operational information and resources for strategic management of public health emergencies and events. EOCs provide communication and information tools and services and a management system during a response to an emergency or event. They also provide other essential functions to support decision-making and implementation, coordination, and collaboration.
This systematic review examined peer-reviewed and grey literature in order to document global best practices for effective public health emergency response by EOCs; to identify indicators to monitor EOC performance; to describe risk communication in EOC settings; to outline research needs; and to identify standardised terminology. The review makes recommendations in the following areas: Best practices for building new EOCs and improving existing onesComponents and characteristics of an emergency operations plan, Risk communication and information sharing, Needs assessments and baseline data, Organisational training and exercises.
