New York Rep. Ritchie Torres is introducing legislation aimed at improving the federal government’s response to public health emergencies, citing shortcomings in how the feds handled an mpox outbreak two years ago.

Torres’s bill would require the Department of Health and Human Services to establish a department-wide strategy for after-action reviews of major health events, incorporating analysis from across the department’s various agencies, such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The review should include people from outside the department.

The legislation also would require HHS to implement a culturally sensitive communication strategy targeting key at-risk populations, including providing guidance in different languages.

“Our government’s disease response apparatus is not properly equipped to successfully coordinate and improve its systems and processes over time,” Torres, a Bronx Democrat, said in a statement. “In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic and mpox outbreak, it’s time we radically change our federal approach to public health.”

The CDC reported that in 2022, most U.S. mpox cases were among men who have sex with men, though anyone can spread the virus.

Torres, who is openly gay, represents part of the Bronx. New York City was the epicenter of the outbreak of mpox, formerly known as monkeypox, in the U.S.

The bill’s rollout coincides with the release Thursday of a new report from the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office (GAO), detailing how the various agencies at HHS do not have a department-wide strategy “to identify and resolve recurring emergency response challenges.”

“This has contributed to the recurrence of those challenges during the mpox emergency and raises concerns for HHS’s ability to lead and respond to future emergencies,” the report states.

The report points to repeated problems at HHS that the GAO says they have identified during past health emergencies, including COVID-19, from ineffective communication with the public, to hurdles to providing testing and antivirals, to obstacles for local governments looking to share their health data.

“Marginalized and at-risk communities cannot afford to bear the brunt of another public health emergency, desperately waiting for the government to get its act together,” Torres said.

Torres initially called on the GAO to investigate back in 2022.

In a statement responding to the GAO report, HHS said they agree with the recommendations and are working on implementation.

“HHS takes its role as the designated lead for the federal public health and medical response to public health emergencies seriously and is committed to coordination across the Department and with external partners and stakeholders to continue to strengthen future response efforts,” HHS wrote.