| NSF Org: |
DEB Division Of Environmental Biology |
| Recipient: |
|
| Initial Amendment Date: | February 5, 2016 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | February 5, 2016 |
| Award Number: | 1624108 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Samuel Scheiner
DEB Division Of Environmental Biology BIO Directorate for Biological Sciences |
| Start Date: | February 15, 2016 |
| End Date: | January 31, 2017 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $99,639.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $99,639.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
|
| History of Investigator: |
|
| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
3 RUTGERS PLZ NEW BRUNSWICK NJ US 08901-8559 (848)932-0150 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
|
| Primary Place of Performance: |
DIMACS, 96 Frelinghuysen Road Piscataway NJ US 08854-8018 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
|
| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
|
| Parent UEI: |
|
| NSF Program(s): |
INFRASTRUCTURE PROGRAM, Ecology of Infectious Diseases, International Research Collab, MATHEMATICAL BIOLOGY |
| Primary Program Source: |
|
| Program Reference Code(s): |
|
| Program Element Code(s): |
|
| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.074 |
ABSTRACT
This award will fund a two-day satellite workshop to the Next Einstein Forum (NEF) in Dakar, Senegal. The workshop will be held on March 6-7, 2016, and will focus on US-African collaborative research on infectious disease modeling for informing public health preparedness. The recent Ebola outbreak in West Africa was a reminder that the world is ill-prepared for a severe disease epidemic or any similar global sustained public emergency. The risk of future global severe infectious disease outbreaks in an increasingly connected world is greater than ever. The workshop will explore how mathematical models can be used to understand and forecast disease transmission dynamics and to evaluate the effect of different interventions and changing on-the-ground conditions on epidemiological outcomes. The workshop will concentrate on the responses to the recent Ebola outbreak, while gaining insight from responses to HIV/AIDS and other epidemics within individual countries. To enhance local engagement, a mini-symposium at the University Cheikh anta Diop of Dakar is also planned.
Though modelers have analyzed ongoing epidemics before, such as the 2003 SARS and 2009 Swine Flu epidemics, their response to the recent Ebola outbreak enabled by online availability of epidemiological data, from WHO and health ministries of the most affected countries, was unprecedented in magnitude. Lessons learned from this outbreak will be fundamental for improving the application for epidemiological modeling during outbreak of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases, engaging public awareness on the importance of epidemiological modeling, and improving interaction between public health authorities and modelers to the end of using mathematical/computational models to inform preparedness strategies to mitigate future epidemics. The satellite workshop and mini-symposium will catalyze collaborations among modelers and policy makers in the US and Africa. Bringing together scientists from Africa and the US should lead them to be better prepared to collaborate on the intertwined problems posed for our societies by the threats of disease. Not only will this enable US researchers to gain better understanding of routes of disease transmission and effects of government policies in Africa, it will also expose them to the modeling efforts in Africa and provide contacts for data and interpretation. Such collaboration will open doors for US researchers to learn of problems that are uniquely African, such as how best to optimize limited resources to contain the spread of a disease in specific African populations.
PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
A workshop on Modeling of Infectious Disease with a Focus on Ebola, held in Dakar, Senegal, brought together a group of 30 mathematical modelers and public health practitioners to review lessons learned from the most recent Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014 and to explore how to enhance preparedness for emerging threats such as the Zika virus. To enhance communication between US and African participants, a mini-symposium on the same topic was held at the University Cheikh anta Diop in Dakar. Because the workshop ended up emphasizing Zika, which was very much in the news at the time of the workshop, a follow-up workshop on Zika was convened.
As workshop participants pointed out, mathematical models played an important role in the response to the 2014 Ebola outbreak. As the emergency progressed, researchers developed mathematical models to help improve understanding of its transmissibility and of the potential effectiveness of various interventions that had been or could be implemented in West Africa. The largest and most influential modeling results were a mathematical model showing the impact of what would happen if the US did nothing to stop the outbreak and also showed the outcome of delaying the international response, and how the outbreak could be stopped if 70 percent of Ebola cases could be placed in Ebola treatment units, had effective isolation, and had safe burials. This message resonated throughout the public health community and it guided actions of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), United States Government, World Health Organization (WHO), and many other partners.
A report from the Senegal workshop noted that climate change will expose new populations to diseases, by altering the range of temperature, precipitation, and other key meteorological variables, changing the areas in which the environment is suitable for these diseases to persist. However, this is a relatively slow process in comparison to the ability of diseases to jump between currently suitable environments via migration and travel. Cataloging, understanding, and ultimately predicting the movement of pathogens such as viruses into naïve suitable environments in the current climate is necessary to anticipate and work to prevent the next crisis situation, and is the critical first step to understanding how disease risks will change in a changing climate. The rapid global spread of Zika is merely the latest example in a long line of diseases that have been transported from their original region and have touched off epidemics in new populations.
Another report from the Senegal workshop explored how to improve the use of data in models to inform governmental and non-governmental organizations. During the West African Ebola epidemic, modeling played an important role in instigating action and informing policy decisions within the context of US government agencies and was the result of recent efforts within the US that have begun to align the priorities of modelers and decision-makers and to increase communication and mutual understanding between these groups.
A third Senegal workshop report spelled out some principles of “good epidemiological modeling.” Among the key conclusions were that intended users and audiences are of critical importance when designing the model, analysis, and in interpreting and communicating the results and that modelers should be “in the room” when the decisions are made about what data should be collected.
The Zika workshop led to new ideas on how mosquito control accounts for overlap in outbreaks among different diseases, not only Zika, but also related mosquito-borne diseases Dengue and Chikungunya. The workshop also led to ideas for tools that could be applied to public health data that could be used to develop models and simulations of the spread of disease from place to place.
The three events have already led to changes in the way epidemiology is taught in several universities, including for example how changing climates are considered. Many participants had been student participants in earlier NSF-supported programs in Africa concerning mathematics and biology, had since become junior faculty, and planned to bring other key workshop messages into their classrooms.
It is crucial for model builders not to build their models in isolation from practitioners. The fact that there were both model builders and practitioners at all three events was critical for both sides to learn from each other. This connection between model builder and practitioner was emphasized in the Senegal workshop reports. This basic message seems to have resonated with the participants and there is every reason to think that they will help spread it, both through the workshop reports and through their own research and teaching.
The collaboration with University Cheikh anta Diop has already led to collaborations, e.g., joint supervision of Masters theses with US faculty and a month-long visit to the US by an African researcher.
Last Modified: 04/28/2017
Modified by: Fred S Roberts
Please report errors in award information by writing to: awardsearch@nsf.gov.
