HIGHLIGHTS
- The nation cannot afford to be unprepared for another global outbreak like COVID-19.
- 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 COVID-19 pandemic made it abundantly clear that the nation’s ability to identify and respond to outbreaks fundamentally relies on access to high-quality and timely data for disease surveillance—especially data about vulnerable populations and response capacity 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 groups in need of additional efforts to provide interventions, and providing such outreach in an efficient fashion. Teams create and disseminate user-friendly data products that capture key socio-demographic and health information by sourcing, integrating, analyzing, and packaging disparate 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 to public health emergencies in an equitable manner that is focused on local communities.
The Results
The resulting tool from this project will take sets of geographic, demographic, health-related data and social characteristics and provide an estimate of the number of persons meeting combinations of criteria. This user-friendly web product will advance health equity by uncovering and displaying those with the greatest health risk, helping facilitate public health jurisdictions to provide interventions.
Learn more:
- Abt to Help CDC Prepare for the Next Global Health Emergency (News Release)