COVID-19 and risk assessment room for public health in four Colombian crossborder territories

Introduction: Public health risk management in Colombia is led by the Instituto Nacional de Salud. In the face of the COVID-19 emergency, response actions centered on the implementation of risk analysis rooms and the strengthening of surveillance at points of entry into the country. Objective: To analyze the implementation and maintenance phases of the COVID-19 risk analysis rooms in four border departments of Colombia. Materials and methods: We conducted a qualitative study of public health risk analysis rooms for COVID-19. We reviewed the documentation and data generated from March to June, 2020, in the departments of Amazonas, Vichada, Guainía, and Putumayo. We did semi-structured interviews with key actors and analyzed the answers using the NVivo plus version 11 application in three cycles: open coding, identification of emerging categories, and modeling by analyzing the identified strengths and weaknesses. Results: We identified the components of the incident command structure and the relationships between the public health areas. Strengths were evidenced in the integration of the areas: the management of information in real time, the border surveillance and the capabilities of rapid response teams, while weaknesses appeared in planning, community surveillance, and risk communication processes. Conclusions: Risk analysis rooms constitute a joint effort at the national and local levels which has promoted the articulated participation of all actors in the analysis of information and the optimization of an organized response during the COVID-19 pandemic.