Description of Collaborative Activity: |
Collaboration between NIH, CDC and academia for disease projections. From weather to infectious diseases, it has been shown that synergizing results from multiple models gives more reliable projections than any one model alone. The COVID-19 Scenario Modeling Hub is a collaborative effort between multiple government agencies and academic institutions to harmonize COVID-19 projections in the United States and facilitate planning and decision making at a 3-12 month time scale. Since December 2020, the COVID19 scenario modeling hub has released 12 rounds of projections on issues as varied as the impact of the vaccination program, non-pharmaceutical interventions, waning immunity, and new variants on the trajectory of cases, hospitalizations and deaths across the US. The most recent set of projections addresses the impact of Omicron. In each round of projections, a set of 4 scenarios are identified to allow alignment of model projections for collective insights. Scenarios are designed in consultation with academic modeling teams, NIH and the CDC. Between 6 and 10 models have contributed to each round. All projections are made publicly available via the COVID-19 scenario modeling hub github and website. After each round, a report summarizing key results is shared with decision-makers and public health stakeholders. There has been substantial media coverage on this effort and results have been used by CDC/ACIP to guide COVID19 vaccine recommendations. The hub expanded in 2022 to generate influenza projections. This study builds on long-standing efforts led by the Fogarty International Center's in-house research division to develop computational approaches to mitigate pandemic risk and foster collaborative network in disease modeling. This effort extends a prior collaboration titled the Multinational Influenza Seasonal Mortality Study (MISMS) to assess the epidemiology, ecology, and evolutionary dynamics of influenza and other rapidly transmissible respiratory viruses. Multinational and bilateral collaborations developed through MISMS collect, analyze, and disseminate research findings through scientific publications, training workshops, and communication tools for investigators and decision-makers. These research findings inform numerous national governments, multilateral organizations, and research stakeholders on interventions for both pandemic and seasonal influenza. To date, data have been acquired from more than 40 countries (representing ~3.2 billion people), resulting in over 220 publications. |
