To the Editor:

On behalf of the American Nurses Association (ANA), congratulations to you and the American Medical Association in the launch of Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness. The ANA was honored to have participated in your efforts to conceptualize a truly multidisciplinary journal that links disaster preparedness and response with public health readiness. Disaster response is a team effort requiring the skills, knowledge, and expertise of all health professionals—not to mention the willingness of providers to respond when called. Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness will be an essential tool that will provide health care professionals with the most up-to-date, science-based practice information for disaster response and public health preparedness.

The science of disaster and public health preparedness and response continues to evolve and grow. Harnessing this new knowledge and research so that it can be put into practice as expeditiously as possible is absolutely necessary to improve the success both nationally and internationally of response capabilities. The ANA supports the mission of this journal as it strives to be timely, to speak to the full spectrum of health providers, and to provide rigorous, peer-reviewed scholarship.

Again, congratulations to you on the inaugural issue of Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness. Nursing looks forward to being a strong contributor to the journal, as well as using its contents to improve our ability to prepare and respond to disasters and other public health emergencies.

Rebecca M. Patton, MSN, RN, CNOR

President, American Nurses Association