WSU to play critical role in improving disease detection, forecasting and response

SEATTLE — As we emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic, new tools are already being put in place to prepare for the next health emergency.

Researchers in Washington state will play a critical role in improving disease detection, forecasting and response. When the coronavirus pandemic hit, there was so much medical experts and the public didn't know and so much they needed to inform communities about.

"Things like checking to see bed capacity for hospitals," said Eric Lofgren, associate professor at the Paul G. Allen School for Global Health at Washington State University. "Trying to understand sort of where we were in the pandemic for any given location and things like that."

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A new initiative by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention puts WSU in the spotlight in the future of disease detection. The CDC is giving a $17.5 million five-year grant to WSU and the University of Utah. That grant will fund a new center called ForeSITE, which stands for Forecasting and Surveillance of Infectious Threats and Epidemics.

"In addition to forecasting, there's what's called nowcasting, which is just asking, 'OK, what's going on right now' and being able to understand for what local health systems this would have done." Lofgren said.

It's an academic collaboration between WSU and Utah that also brings in public health partners from state health departments to local clinics.

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"If you are a small health care system, you'll have a very different set of things that you're potentially worried about, potentially interested in than a state health department," Lofgren said.

The ForeSITE team will use the data provided by those groups and then design tailored tools, like dashboards, to help them make those tough decisions.

"One of the questions was things like when can we reopen," Lofgren said. "What does reopening mean? What does being lockdown mean? Have tools that will answer those questions and then help identify were people actually need help."

The hope is that this center, which is one of 13 funded by the CDC, will set up a nationwide outbreak response network so that when the next public health emergency breaks out, even if it's the upcoming flu season, it's easier to detect and respond to.