Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security Awarded

The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security is awarded an award of five years’ $23.5 million grant by the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control’s Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics to carry out an outbreak preparedness project within the multisite CDC Outbreak Analytics and Disease Modeling Network. The Center for Health Security is located in Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

The Health Security Center’s project -Toward Epidemic Preparedness Enhancing the Public Health Infrastructure and Incorporating Data-Driven Tools –will create large-scale partnerships with traditional and nontraditional stakeholders in public health across the nation and will also provide health professionals, students, and modelers in the use of modeling and analytics tools to tackle the full range of responses to epidemics. The project will bring together diverse groups, such as local and state public department of health, elected officials and public health decision-makers and meteorologists.

The project is directed by Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security senior scholars Caitlin Rivers, PhD MPH, and Crystal Watson, DrPH. Rivers has returned to Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security last year following her time as the Center for Disease Control’s Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics Director of the Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics from August 2021 until June 2022.

“This initiative is a crucial step in fortifying our nation’s defenses against future epidemics,” states Rivers, an epidemiologist who is an assistant professor at the Department of Environmental Health and Engineering, which includes two schools: the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health as well as the Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering. “Through collaborative partnerships and the deployment of data-driven tools, we aim to empower public health professionals, decision-makers, and communities across the country to proactively respond to emerging health threats.”

“This project enables our team to promote nationwide adoption of data analytics tools with new and established partners,” says Watson who is an assessor and expert in preparedness who is an assistant professor at the Department of Environmental Health and Engineering. “Building analytical and communication skills is vital for aiding policymakers in gathering, understanding, and acting on evidence during health crises.”

The CDC established its Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics in 2021 as a response to the COVID-19 epidemic. The CDC Center has conducted research on the responses to mpox Polio, and acute child Hepatitis.

“This is an extraordinary opportunity for the Bloomberg School to work with the CDC to build on lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic and help create prevention and response systems that are robust, resilient, and ready for the challenges ahead,” says Ellen J. MacKenzie, PhD, ScM head of the Bloomberg School of Public Health. “I am ecstatic of the fact that Caitlin Rivers, and Crystal Watson will play such important roles in changing our approach to preparing. Through promoting new tools and resources and fostering more effective collaboration across all sectors, they’ll ensure health and protect lives across the country.”

The Center for Health Security will collaborate with other colleagues from The Bloomberg School and Johns Hopkins University, which includes Johns Hopkins University’s Johns Hopkins Center for Teaching and Learning, to carry out this initiative. The first year of the project the team will work closely with partners to understand decision makers require information, and investigate how analytics and modeling can aid in improving decision-making during health emergencies.

“This project will allow our Center to focus on a new and critical domain of work that holds immense potential for enhancing our country’s preparedness for future epidemics,” says Tom Inglesby, MD, director of the Center for Health Security. “We are committed to working with our partners to establish systems, processes, and collaborations for integrating modeling and analytics into the management of routine and seasonal respiratory viruses as well as potential infectious disease emergencies.”

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