CDC launches Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics to improve public health data response

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced this week the launch of the new Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics (CFA).

The latest addition to the CDC umbrella will focus on improving U.S. capabilities to utilize data, models, and analytics for quicker decision-making during outbreaks and other public health threats. Infectious disease modeling, data, and other analytics will be its bread and butter, which it will use to support federal, state, and local responses.

“I am excited we have launched CDC’s Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said. “This new center is an example of how we are modernizing the ways we prepare for and respond to public health threats. I am proud of the work that has come out of this group thus far and eager to see continued innovation in the use of data, modeling, and analytics to improve outbreak responses.”

Initial funding for the CFA stemmed from the American Rescue Plan Act, which provided $200 million. Bolstering its efforts, the CDC has also awarded $26 million to academic institutions and federal partners to simultaneously evolve modeling and forecasting methodology.

CFA will focus on three areas: predict, inform and innovate. For prediction, it is gathering a multi-discipline outbreak analytics team. Innovation will rely on its advancements in the science of outbreak data, models, and analytics. As for informing, the agency is hiring communicators to share insights with governmental partners and the public regularly. In the case of this last item, the CFA has taken to viewing the effort as the equivalent of a National Weather Service for infectious diseases, with information meant to inform individual decision-making.

“The capabilities and team we are building at the new Center will improve decision-making in a health crisis,” Dr. Dylan George, director for operations at the CFA, said. “I am proud of the CFA team and excited for the future. Better data and analytics will give us better responses to protect all Americans.”