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Building Resilience: A Comprehensive Framework for Evaluating University Emergency Response to Major Emerging Infectious Diseases

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 December 2025

Meiting Wu Open the ORCID record for Meiting Wu [Opens in a new window] ,
Huijun Sun ,
Shenfang Zheng ,
Fang Zhao  and
Xiangdong Peng
Meiting Wu*
Affiliation:
School of Nursing and Health Management, Shanghai University of Medicine & Health Sciences , Shanghai, China
Huijun Sun
Affiliation:
Shanghai Clinical Research and Trial Center, ShanghaiTech University, Shanghai, China
Shenfang Zheng
Affiliation:
School of Nursing and Health Management, Shanghai University of Medicine & Health Sciences , Shanghai, China
Fang Zhao
Affiliation:
School of Nursing and Health Management, Shanghai University of Medicine & Health Sciences , Shanghai, China
Xiangdong Peng
Affiliation:
School of Nursing and Health Management, Shanghai University of Medicine & Health Sciences , Shanghai, China
*
Corresponding author: Meiting Wu; Email: wumt@sumhs.edu.cn
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Abstract

Objective

To develop an evaluative framework for assessing the emergency response capabilities of higher education institutions to major emerging infectious diseases, enabling institutions to identify preparedness gaps and prioritize improvements across the outbreak lifecycle.

Methods

The Haddon Matrix was used as the foundation for the framework. A Delphi study with a Likert scale was conducted, followed by the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to determine the importance of the indicators.

Results

A consensus was reached on the evaluation system, comprising 3 primary indicators: prevention and preparedness, response and handling, and recovery and rehabilitation. These indicators were further divided into 11 secondary and 34 tertiary indicators. Expert authority coefficients were 0.82 and 0.80, and Kendall’s coefficients were 0.32 and 0.161 (P < 0.001). AHP highlighted prevention and preparedness as the highest-priority domain (weight = 0.426), followed by recovery and rehabilitation (0.326). High-priority items included safety knowledge dissemination, emergency command systems, primary prevention, and timely warning and monitoring.

Conclusions

Integrating the Haddon matrix, Delphi consensus, and AHP, this study delivers a validated, prioritized framework to assess universities’ MEID response capability across phases. External validity beyond Shanghai remains to be established; cross-regional applicability should be empirically tested through multi-site validation, broader stakeholder representation, and evaluation of technology-enabled components, particularly in resource-limited settings.

Keywords

Delphi methodHaddon matrixmajor emerging infectious diseasesemergency management capabilityevaluation framework

Information

Type
Original Research
Information
Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness , Volume 19 , 2025 , e336
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Society for Disaster Medicine and Public Health, Inc

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Footnotes

*

Meiting Wu and Huijun Sun have contributed equally to this work.

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