Keeping an Open Mind in an Emergency: CDC Experiments With 'Team B'
2008
This case and epilogue focus on the efforts at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the early 2000s to come up with new strategies for addressing the growing complexity of public health emergencies. At that time, the 2001 anthrax attacks illustrated the threats posed by weaponized pathogens, while resurgent infectious diseases and drug-resistant pathogens rose.
As described in the abstract, the case describes how "top level CDC strategists began to consider adding a feature called "Team B," to emergency investigations. Team B would be made up of people with expertise in the topic at hand, but with no significant responsibilities in the investigation itself. This group would convene regularly, over the course of the emergency investigation, to review the latest developments in the outbreak, and to ask themselves whether there were alternative interpretations of the data, or concurrent developments, that the principal investigating team had either missed or too readily dismissed."
The case is part of a series produced by the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) Case Program. Each case in the series is designed to train public leaders, and introduces actual policy dilemmas along with data to equip students to learn how to apply the rigor of quantitative analysis in the real world. The funding source was Harvard’s National Preparedness Leadership Initiative. This case is available for free.
Keeping an Open Mind in an Emergency: CDC Experiments With 'Team B'
Source:
Varley P et al. Keeping an Open Mind in an Emergency: CDC Experiments With 'Team B'. HKS Case No. 1895. Harvard Kennedy School Case Program 2008.
https://case.hks.harvard.edu/keeping-an-open-mind-in-an-emergency-cdc-experiments-with-team-b.