relevant capabilities and assets. The private sector is a key partner that we have engaged through our global roundtable of senior business leaders to understand how the international business community can benefit from our preparedness efforts and provide relevant information as another hub in our preparedness and response network.

Secretary Leavitt mentioned that President Bush has authorized us to use our quarantine powers, if needed, for a novel or re-emergent strain of influenza with the potential to cause a pandemic. We are also moving domestically to expand our capacity from 8 quarantine stations to 30. Those are important steps, but they also highlight the fact that preparedness takes time – and time is of the essence if we hope to optimize quarantine and isolation capacity on a global scale. We had some practice with SARS. That experience taught us that with the right framework, people can do the seemingly impossible. But SARS was a relatively easy problem compared with the global challenges that an influenza virus strain with a high reproductive number (Ro) would create. We need to investigate the human aspects of isolation and quarantine, and what we need to do to prepare people and engage our leaders and our population in appropriate isolation and quarantine responsibilities.

Anthrax and SARS taught us that we need solid communication science if we are going to have any hope of managing a major influenza outbreak. That science needs to address the content and credibility of communication to diverse populations. That effort isn’t just about translating science into messages that ordinary people can understand. It’s about translating ordinary messages into hopeful and helpful information that people of multiple cultural and linguistic backgrounds can use, and about transmitting information through a variety of channels on which we do not usually rely in the Western Hemisphere. I would urge this meeting not to lose sight of the human side of the research agenda, and to grapple with the communication sciences that are essential to our ability to prepare for and respond to an influenza outbreak or pandemic.

The biggest lesson we have learned from other public health threats is that the most important enemy is complacency. I do not know how to develop a research agenda around preventing complacency, but I would submit that doing so is urgent. My fear is that although the lens may be shining on avian influenza right now, if the H5N1 strain does not become more transmissible to people, we will falsely assume that the threat is over. Worse, we could be accused of inappropriately revving up our preparedness efforts without a scientific basis. I do not believe we have done that, but it reminds us about the importance of credible communication so that the public understands the need to prepare and what is at stake if we don’t. We must strike the right balance between action and reassurance. The stimulus to effective research that this conference promises to foster is an essential step toward evidence-based policy decisions, effective public health action, and credible communication in the context of this global threat.