GAO makes recommendations on infectious disease modeling

A report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) examines how federal agencies use infectious disease modeling to fight outbreaks and what can be done to improve them.

The report, titled “Infectious Disease Modeling: Opportunities to Improve Coordination and Ensure Reproducibility,” also looks at how these models can be improved. The GAO says the Department of Health and Human Services needs to improve the effectiveness, better coordinate efforts, and instruct CDC to establish guidelines on modeling.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee requested the report after learning about challenges with infectious disease modeling during the Zika outbreak during a 2017 hearing. At that May 23, 2017 hearing, Dr. Timothy M. Persons, GAO chief scientist, said insufficient data inhibited the Zika modeling.

“As we have learned through previous outbreaks and the COVID-19 pandemic we are now facing, it is important to know how to stop the spread of a disease and how to best utilize public health resources. We know the better the infectious disease modeling, the better we can target our response to public health threats. We learned about the shortcomings with modeling in a hearing on the Zika outbreak and requested a bipartisan report to better understand the challenges of infectious disease modeling and how it can be improved,” committee leaders, Reps. Greg Walden (R-OR), Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ), Brett Guthrie (R-KY), and Diana DeGette (D-CO) said.

The lawmakers said they hope HHS will apply these findings to help with response efforts now and for future public health emergencies.

“As we are learning lessons from this outbreak, we will continue working together in a bipartisan way to help overcome this pandemic,” they said.