A public health emergency operations centre (EOC) is a central location for coordinating operational information and resources for strategic management of public health emergencies and events. EOCs provide communication and information tools and services and a management system during a response to an emergency or event. They also provide other essential functions to support decision-making and implementation, coordination, and collaboration.

This systematic review examined peer-reviewed and grey literature in order to document global best practices for effective public health emergency response by EOCs; to identify indicators to monitor EOC performance; to describe risk communication in EOC settings; to outline research needs; and to identify standardised terminology.

The review makes recommendations in the following areas:

• Best practices for building new EOCs and improving existing ones
• Components and characteristics of an emergency operations plan
• Risk communication and information sharing
• Needs assessments and baseline data
• Organisational training and exercises