Community Assessment for Public Health Emergency Response (CASPER): A Systematic Review of the Literature
Abstract
Study Objectives: The goal of this study is to perform a descriptive systematic review of the literature related to Community Assessment for Public Health Emergency Response (CASPER) utilization. The intent is to better inform public health and emergency management officials on the benefits and risks of the CASPER tool when responding to or planning for naturally occurring and human-made disasters. Methods: The research team conducted a systematic literature search of the PubMed, CINAHL, and Scopus databases. We did not restrict our review to publications in a specified language. We searched a ten-year (2007–2017) span of data due to CASPER being widely available beginning in 2009. The team excluded any citation not subject to peer review from the primary analysis. Our search queries were: "CASPER" and "Community Assessment for Public Health Emergency Response. Date of the last search was 17 April 2017. Results: The systematic review identified a total of 413 unique citations. Title and abstract screening eliminated 387 citations from consideration. The research team reviewed the full text of 26 articles and ultimately selected 19 for inclusion in the systematic review. The interrater reliability was acceptable (k=0.90; 95% CI 0.70 to 1.00). Conclusion: This descriptive systematic review of the literature related to CASPER found that the usage of the technique is not widely adopted. Encouraging the use CASPER for regular public health assessments may increase the tools utilization during disasters.
Subject Area
Public health
Recommended Citation
Mapp, Julian, "Community Assessment for Public Health Emergency Response (CASPER): A Systematic Review of the Literature" (2017). Texas Medical Center Dissertations (via ProQuest). AAI10275205.
https://digitalcommons.library.tmc.edu/dissertations/AAI10275205