On August 18, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced a new center designed to forecast outbreaks and provide public health decision-making analytics. The new Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics will bring together public health data and disease experts to accelerate access to data for public health decision-makers to mitigate the effects of disease threats.
Through its advocacy to combat the current pandemic, as well as future pandemics, the CAP supported the creation of the new center. In a February 10 letter to congressional leaders, the CAP asked lawmakers to allow the CDC to “establish, expand, and maintain a data surveillance and analytics infrastructure and to modernize the US disease warning system to forecast and track hotspots for COVID-19.”
With initial funding from the American Rescue Plan, the center will focus on three key functions of prediction, connection, and information communications. By creating the center, the CDC has sought to improve the government’s ability to forecast and model emerging health threats while building on existing modeling activities, expanding collaboration through interoperability, accessibility, and increased emphasis on policy-maker decision support and communication to the public.