Resilience building in public health rapid response teams in urban multi-hazard scenarios: Pathways and strategies from Shanghai, China

Abstract

Urban centers face a complex and multifaceted array of public health threats from infectious disease outbreaks and incidents of foodborne pathogens to health crises due to disasters, posing grave risks to people's health and societal stability. As the operational backbone of emergency response systems, public health rapid response teams are mission-critical in performing disease surveillance, outbreak containment, and clinical case management across all phases of emergencies. Nevertheless, persistent structural barriers including workforce deficits and competency mismatches constrain operational effectiveness during large-scale health emergencies. To address these challenges, this study proposes a resilience-building framework for public health rapid response teams that takes into account multi-hazard scenario planning and the evolving nature of events. Key interventions including institutional capacity building, strategic foresight initiatives, cross-sector policy integration, and tiered resource allocation systems have been implemented in order to enhance the core resilience dimensions of withstanding shocks, agile adaptability, and restoration of functioning.