language. Clear communication helps deliver easy-to-understand and actionable messages to the public. These materials can quickly be updated and disseminated electronically when a pandemic alert, or even a severe seasonal influenza epidemic, occurs. Pre-pandemic planning guidelines and related planning tools can also assist SLTT public health officials prepare for a potential influenza pandemic and take action to slow the spread of the influenza virus throughout their communities. Before a pandemic strikes, clear communication, ongoing coordination and collaboration among public health officials and key community planners (for example, schools and child care settings, institutions of higher education, and businesses) can lay the groundwork for optimal pandemic response. Timely and strong lines of communication will ensure the consistency and effectiveness of information and local decision making before and during a pandemic. Travel and border health measures may be considered to slow the introduction or export of pandemic influenza between the United States and other countries, but they should be carefully evaluated based on their effectiveness and potential economic and social impacts. HHS’s efforts to evaluate NPIs and form strategic collaborations with partners over the past decade have generated progress across a range of community settings, although continued work is needed to understand how changes in messages and ways of delivering them can improve public response to a pandemic. Notable examples and key actions for the future include the following: • Increasing knowledge and research on the feasibility, public acceptability, and effects of a range of NPIs, including school and child care closures. • Establishing partnerships among HHS, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and the Coast Guard at more than 300 U.S. ports of entry. These partnerships were critical in the response to the risk of importation and potential domestic spread of Ebola, as they also provide notifications from emergency medical services and state and local health departments. Procedures are in place for conducting contact investigations among passengers and crews of aircraft and cruise ships, scalable by disease and situation. This experience strengthens future responses to pandemic ited application of travel and border health influenza, even with potentially lim measures. • Creating and maintaining a public website to provide helpful plain language information about the different types of NPIs and how they can be used at home, school and child care settings, work, and large gatherings. Key action: HHS will continue to collect data on the effectiveness of specific or combination NPIs in reducing the spread of influenza virus. These data will be published in public health journals, and clear communication materials will be developed to assist in community implementation of effective NPIs. Key action: HHS will continue to update and translate into multiple languages the public information on NPIs as new data are generated on NPI effectiveness. 19