Evidence based health policy

Background: Allocation of adequate healthcare facilities is one of the most important factors that public health policymakers consider when preparing for infectious disease outbreaks. Negative pressure isolation rooms (NPIRs) are one of the critical resources for control of infectious respiratory diseases, such as the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak. However, there is insufficient attention to efficient allocation of NPIR-equipped hospitals. Methods: We aim to explore any insufficiency and spatial disparity of NPIRs in South Korea in response to infectious disease outbreaks based on a simple analytic approach. We examined the history of installing NPIRs in South Korea between the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak in 2003 and the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-Cov) in 2015 to evaluate the allocation process and spatial distribution of NPIRs across the country. Then, for two types of infectious diseases (a highly contagious diseas...

Background: Allocation of adequate healthcare facilities is one of the most important factors that public health policymakers consider when preparing for infectious disease outbreaks. Negative pressure isolation rooms (NPIRs) are one of the critical resources for control of infectious respiratory diseases, such as the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak. However, there is insufficient attention to efficient allocation of NPIR-equipped hospitals. Methods: We aim to explore any insufficiency and spatial disparity of NPIRs in South Korea in response to infectious disease outbreaks based on a simple analytic approach. We examined the history of installing NPIRs in South Korea between the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak in 2003 and the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-Cov) in 2015 to evaluate the allocation process and spatial distribution of NPIRs across the country. Then, for two types of infectious diseases (a highly contagious diseas...