PIPP Phase I: Robust Epidemic Surveillance and Modeling (RESUME)

Northwestern will contribute three major projects to RESUME activities: 1. Contribute our COVID model to OSPREY for ensemble modeling (subthrust 1a) We will onboard our Illinois regional COVID-19 simulation model on OSPREY, identify technical barriers to onboarding, and co-design solutions with the OSPREY team to reduce barriers for more models to join. We will configure our model to ingest OSPREY-hosted data (subthrust 2b, 2c) and write outputs suitable for ensemble model comparisons. 2. Design a modeling mini-course for public health stakeholders (subthrust 1b) We will design and pilot a short course on how to understand, interpret, and use models responsibly for public health stakeholders who are not modelers. The learning objectives of the course are to understand how models can inform policy, be able to formulate a modeling question, and know a few ways to gauge model quality and suitability. After completing the course, stakeholders should be better able to co-design modeling requirements for pandemic preparedness. 3. Explore how adaptive response under uncertainty can be used to improve malaria intervention planning (subthrust 1c) We will explore the value of information when devising malaria strategic plans and how surveillance systems can be adapted to improve subnational targeting of interventions. We will produce ranked strategic plans devised under various conditions of suboptimal surveillance data, identify robust plans, and quantify the sensitivity of plans to different types of surveillance inputs. We will also participate in planning meetings, engagement meetings with public health stakeholders for co-design of the decision support system (subthrust 1b), and scenario planning for emerging pathogens (subthrust 3b).