Policy & Value-Based Care

CDC Announces $26 Million in Funding for Infectious Disease Forecasting and Analytics

Oct. 27, 2021

The CDC recently announced that it will provide $26 million in funding to develop next-generation infectious disease forecasting and analytics to improve the nation’s pandemic preparedness and response

Janette Wider

On Oct. 26, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced via a press release $26 million in funding to develop next-generation infectious disease forecasting and analytics.

The release states that “The agency will provide $21 million to support research and development of advanced infectious disease models and analytical tools. The awards will support three years of work at five leading academic institutions: University at Albany, State University of New York; Johns Hopkins University; Stanford University; the University of Utah; and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.”

Further, “The CDC also announced $5 million to support collaborations with the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy to further advance federal infectious disease modeling capabilities. These funds will support rapid-response research projects and provide access to high performance computing resources.”

The release explains that the investments are part of a broader effort to improve the country’s ability to use data, modeling, and analytics to improve pandemic preparedness and response. The funding for the projects come from the American Rescue Plan of 2021 and these awards are the first investments by the CDC’s Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics (CFA).

The work will include:

Developing new methods and resources for analyzing infectious disease data to support public health decision-making
Create tools and programs to train future infectious disease modelers
Understand and develop evidence-based strategies to combat health inequities during outbreaks

Dylan George, CFA’s director for operations, was quoted in the release saying that “These investments will improve the nation’s ability to forecast infectious-disease outbreaks and to better inform local leaders on how to respond. We are excited to work with the renowned experts on these needed projects.”

The release concludes that “Other activities by CFA will include providing modeling and analytical capabilities to federal, state, tribal, territorial, and local partners. The new Center will also provide timely and accessible information to the public. CFA is expected to formally launch in early 2022.”