From Preparedness to Documented Operational Readiness: Mapping Public Evidence Across the EU/EEA Health-Security Architecture

Background/Objectives: Post-pandemic reforms have expanded the EU/EEA health-security architecture across surveillance, crisis coordination, medical countermeasures, workforce mobilisation, civil protection and cybersecurity. Preparedness structures do not themselves establish operational performance. We mapped publicly available documentary evidence of operationalisation across eight health-readiness domains.

Methods

We applied structured qualitative documentary analysis and a capability-based Framework Method to 35 primary public sources dated or accessed between 1 January 2024 and 17 September 2026. We extracted 190 source-linked observations. Frequency estimates included 175 observations from 34 sources after excluding 15 potentially overlapping rows from an interim cross-country PHEPA synthesis. Evidence was coded using nonexclusive policy (P), mechanism (M), operational functionality (O), completed exercise (E) and real-world use (R) attributes, without deriving a readiness score.