Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has taken a significant step towards strengthening our response to infectious disease outbreaks. The CDC has recently awarded $17.5 million to a coalition led by researchers at UC San Diego. The objective of this award is to develop innovative tools and networks to respond rapidly to emerging disease outbreaks, according to UC San Diego Today.
Eliah Aronoff-Spencer, M.D., Ph.D., the grant's principal investigator (PI), expressed the need for a stronger response system, stating that "the COVID pandemic underlined the gaps in our systems to rapidly and effectively respond to infectious disease threats." The project, titled Resilient Shield: A Network for Outbreak Data Integration and Modeling to Support Rapid Public Health Action, will run for five years starting September 29.
The project intends to bring together multidisciplinary and diverse expertise to drive the development of groundbreaking solutions. According to UC San Diego Chancellor Pradeep K. Khosla, "This effort to bring together multidisciplinary and diverse expertise will drive the development of groundbreaking solutions. We are proud to contribute to increasing the resilience of our region and others across the nation."
The project is a joint initiative that includes experts from UCLA, UCSF, UC Riverside, Los Alamos National Laboratory, the University of Washington, and the County of San Diego Health and Human Services Agency. The goal is to create a more formal and strengthened network between modelers and public health authorities. This is based on the informal partnerships that formed during the COVID-19 pandemic, as mentioned by grant co-PI Mark S. Handcock, Ph.D., distinguished professor of statistics at UCLA.
Eric McDonald, M.D., M.P.H., interim agency director for the San Diego Health and Human Services Agency, emphasized the importance of collaboration between UC San Diego's epidemic modelers and the County. He acknowledged how their partnership has informed critical decision-making, particularly during the hepatitis A outbreak of 2017-2019 and the COVID-19 pandemic.
One major objective of the project is to analyze data sources for predictive power and utility. Ruy Ribeiro, Ph.D., a staff scientist in theoretical biology and biophysics at Los Alamos National Laboratory, explained that data sources would include molecular epidemiology, wastewater and air surveillance, exposure notification systems, internet searches and posts, legally available clinical data, and scenario-based simulations.
The project will test its adaptive modeling process with San Diego’s Health and Human Services Agency. According to co-PI Natasha Martin, D.Phil., professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases and Global Public Health at UC San Diego School of Medicine, this collaboration, if successful, will serve as a blueprint for how modeling can best be used to inform public health action.
As part of the pilot testing, the project will focus on communities and populations in San Diego County that have been historically left behind, including the ongoing Hepatitis A outbreak in persons experiencing homelessness, HIV outbreak clusters, and retrospective analyses of responses to disease agents like SARS-COV2, influenza, and respiratory syncytial virus, particularly in vulnerable populations.
The project's success will be measured by the team's ability to provide useful and timely modeling and outbreak data visualizations to inform public health decisions when the County needs it most. Furthermore, the work in San Diego is intended to act as a reference design for improving analytics, modeling, and forecasting in U.S. health jurisdictions across the country.
According to co-PI William Lober, professor of Health Informatics and Global Health in the Schools of Nursing, Medicine, and Public Health at the University of Washington, "Together, and with our federal partners at CDC’s Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics, we’ll create resources that can be used routinely to inform public health decisions and that can be scaled rapidly to respond to public health emergencies."
The project also aims to break down academic silos and geographical borders that have thus far hindered timely and effective outbreak forecasting and response. Co-PI Mohsen Malekinejad, M.D., Dr.P.H., associate professor of epidemiology and global health at UCSF, expressed excitement about the collaboration, stating, "This grant will allow us to further develop and expand our data sharing systems, analytical infrastructure, research, and training capacities in the field."
