The Research

With the increase in awareness of terrorist attacks in the last decade, the threat of bioterrorism is increasingly troubling. The Metropolitan D.C. area is vulnerable to an aerosolized anthrax attack because current governmental response plans are underdeveloped and inefficient. The fact that we are not anticipating such a rare attack has caused a sense of complacency and unpreparedness with the nation’s approach to structuring the responses.

The processes of detecting the pathogen coordinating among various governmental agencies and response teams during the investigation of an attack, determining a course of action, and executing a response are all tenuously linked at this point in time. Various factors lead to the ambiguity occurring between the detection of the pathogen and the execution of a response, which occurs during the processes of inter-agency coordination and determination of a course of action. This ambiguity would increase the response time in the event of an aerosolized anthrax attack, leading to increased damage as a result of the attack.

Therefore, the purpose of our research is to determine ways to improve the investigation and decision-making of the response. In determining this, we examine the four main points of the system of response:

• Surveillance
• Investigation
• Determining a response
• Executing response

\One of our main goals is shortening the time between each step, and if we can shorten that, then the system becomes more efficient and more lives can be saved.

Another focus is the interaction of different parties involved in the response to an attack, especially local hospitals, fire departments, health departments, and points where vaccines would be made available. Because our study is directed towards the D.C. Metropolitan, we will also be looking at the response from the federal government, from organizations such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Centers for Disease Control.

These organizations would all participate in the response to an attack on the Washington area, and since there is such a high number of these organizations in the area, in no small part due to the multiple jurisdictions within the Washington area, this would lead to much confusion and a lack of a chain of command. BIOCOUNTER hopes to examine and fix these complex problems.

BIOCOUNTER will use two methods of conducting research into the problem. Interviewing experts will be our primary method. These include doctors and nurses who are involved with diagnosis of the disease and officials in health departments who may be involved with the distribution of vaccines. We will also interview members of academia who may not be as well-versed in the actual system of response but may offer some insight as to different aspects of the anthrax disease itself. All in all, these interviews will help us gain a fuller understanding of the system of interaction, especially which agencies contact which and the gaps that exist in the system.

Our other method will be more quantitative, involving the use of computer and mathermatical models. We will use these models in order to measure the efficiency of certain programs and detection devices in the event of an anthrax attack, mostly involving the use of plume models in order to simulate the spread of anthrax spores.

In gaining both a qualitative and quantitative understanding of an anthrax attack, we will better prepare the area for an anthrax attack. At the very least, our work will inspire other government agencies to increase communication amongst each other, which will hopefully lead to a more efficient system of response.

Soft Systems Methodology

The methodology we will be using is not the usual quantitative methodology. Our research project involves the coordination of a large number of organizations, spanning a relatively short time frame. Soft Systems Methodology is a methodology used for the express purpose of examining complex systems with human actors. The following are the seven simple steps of our methodology:

1. Describing the Problem

• The first step states the obvious: Describing and identifying the issue(s) at hand which need to be solved.
• BIOCOUNTER example: Inefficiency of the emergency response of the system.

2. Rich Pictures

• Rich pictures are diagrams of the system as it is, with all its imperfections and gaps
• BIOCOUNTER will develop the research in this step through interviews.

3. Root Definition

• Once the rich pictures are completed, the system is then summarized and defined, answering: What the system is, what the system does, and why the system does it.

4. Models of Interaction

• As opposed to rich pictures, this stage develops idealized models of the system in question.
• BIOCOUNTER will develop these according to two categories: The multiplicity of jurisdiction in the area and the opinions of interviewed experts.

5. Comparison

• Step five compares the rich pictures to the models of interaction, thereby making all the gaps and imperfections of the existing system more prominent.

6. Feasible and Desirable Changes

• Step  six examines the recommended changes from the comparison and tests them out.
• As BIOCOUNTER cannot actively test out its recommendations during an actual attack, this stage will be used for mathematical and computer modeling.

7. Solutions

• The final step is the development of solutions based on the previous step.
• BIOCOUNTER's recommendations will serve as the solution to the project.