Analysis of results from the Joint External Evaluation: examining its strength and assessing for trends among participating countries.

Background The Joint External Evaluation (JEE) is part of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) new process to help countries assess their ability to prevent, detect and respond to public health threats such as infectious disease outbreaks, as specified by the International Health Regulations (IHR). How countries are faring on these evaluations is not well known and neither is there any previous assessment of the performance characteristics of the JEE process itself.