Innovating modeling and forecasting tools to improve outbreak response

Epistorm is an innovation center of InsightNet, the national network for outbreak and disease modeling established by the CDC’s Center for Forecasting & Outbreak Analytics (CFA) in 2023. As a consortium of research institutions, healthcare systems and private companies we develop innovative methodologies to integrate high-resolution mobility, airline travel, genomic and wastewater surveillance data—with mechanistic, statistical, and deep learning forecasting models to increase the accuracy of predictive analytics to help the U.S. make more informed decisions during future outbreaks of infectious diseases.

epistorm consortium

Northeastern University
Boston University
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center
Ginkgo Biosecurity
Indiana University
Los Alamos National Laboratory
MaineHealth
Northern Light Health
University of California San Diego
University of Florida

Public health collaborators

New Hampshire DHHS
Maine DHHS
Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists

EPISTORM Updates

News & announcements

April 23, 2024

Upcoming panel discussion on April 30: "From Data to Action: Leveraging Data Science for Effective Health Policy and Surveillance Against Emerging Infectious Disease Threats"

Upcoming panel discussion on April 30: "From Data to Action: Leveraging Data Science for Effective Health Policy and Surveillance Against Emerging Infectious Disease Threats"

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March 11, 2024

New paper from Boston University in Nature Communications: "Comparative effectiveness of alternative intervals between first and second doses of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines"

New paper from Boston University in Nature Communications: "Comparative effectiveness of alternative intervals between first and second doses of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines"

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February 21, 2024

The 16th Annual Summer Institute in Statistics and Modeling in Infectious Diseases (SISMID) will be held at Emory University from July 15-31. Registration opens March 4.

The 16th Annual Summer Institute in Statistics and Modeling in Infectious Diseases (SISMID) will be held at Emory University from July 15-31. Registration opens March 4.

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"We want to be in a place where there is a National Weather Service for epidemics and epidemic threats."
- Alessandro Vespignani, project lead
Outcomes

By creating new modeling approaches and leveraging novel data sources, we propose to improve outbreak response by focusing on four critical needs in public health emergencies:

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Increased availability of advanced epidemic modeling and predictive analytics with multimodal data integration

by creating advanced tools for the interpretation of data pertinent to potential health threats and their management

supporting implementation of strategic plans while accounting for health inequity issues

by establishing an immersive educational strategy with real-world experience such as collabathons in public health responses and analytics projects, while fostering pathways for their career advancement within public health systems via our student experiential learning model (co-op experiential program).

"We want to be in a place where there is a National Weather Service for epidemics and epidemic threats."
-Alessandro Vespignani,
project lead
UPDATES

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