Journal of biomedical informatics
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Development and dissemination of public health (PH) guidance to healthcare organizations and the general public (e.g., businesses, schools, individuals) during emergencies like the COVID-19 pandemic is vital for policy, clinical, and public decision-making. Yet, the rapidly evolving nature of these events poses significant challenges for guidance development and dissemination strategies predicated on well-understood concepts and clearly defined access and distribution pathways. Taxonomies are an important but underutilized tool for guidance authoring, dissemination and updating in such dynamic scenarios. ⋯ The PH guidance taxonomy can support public health agencies by aligning guidance development with curation and indexing strategies; supporting targeted dissemination; increasing the speed of updates; and enhancing public-facing guidance repositories and information retrieval tools. Taxonomies are essential to support knowledge management activities during rapidly evolving scenarios such as disease outbreaks and natural disasters.