HIGHLIGHTS
- The nation needs to be prepared to prevent global outbreaks.
- Abt is helping CDC prepare effective responses.
- Data collected will be used to provide targeted interventions across federal, state, and local levels.
PROJECT
CDC / CFA Demographic Social Comorbidities Table (DSCT)
The Challenge
The nation’s ability to identify and respond to outbreaks relies on access to high-quality and timely data for disease surveillance and response at state and local levels.
The Approach
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics (CFA) contracted Abt and its partner, HealthVerity, to provide data that federal, state, territory, and local governments and other organizations can use to target interventions and countermeasures in the event of a public health emergency. The tool created in this contract aids planners in estimating resource needs, evaluating intervention coverage, identifying areas for intervention, and providing efficient outreach. Teams create and disseminate user-friendly data products that capture key information by sourcing, integrating, analyzing, and packaging different datasets. Data scientists and epidemiologists combine large data sets from a variety of industry and government sources with massive computing power, automation, analytics, and artificial intelligence.
Abt’s team integrates data across sectors from publicly available sources, such as the U.S. Census Bureau, the Behavioral Health Risk Factor Surveillance System, and more. Medical claims data, social media data, data from service providers (healthcare providers, schools, universities, nursing homes, and correctional facilities), and market research are used to inform plans and responses, focused on local communities.
The Results
The resulting tool from this project will take sets of geographic, demographic, and other related data and provide an estimate of the number of persons meeting combinations of criteria. This user-friendly web product will uncover and display risks, helping facilitate public health jurisdictions to provide interventions.