Enhancing tools for response, analytics and control of epidemics in Latin America

This project will address a regional gap in the response to epidemics in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) by developing a dynamic platform for interaction with interoperable analytical tools that will strengthen the understanding and prediction of infectious-disease epidemics, assess the impact of interventions and inform the public-health response.

Based on two major epidemic challenges such as respiratory and mosquito-borne infections, this project will draw from current programming to change how analytics are used in infectious-disease epidemic response, moving from inflexible analytical tools and ad-hoc collaboration to an integrated, generalizable and scalable community-driven software. A regional node will adapt the core data tools to the LAC context and develop complementary activities that focus on research, software development, training and knowledge translation. Research users and governmental staff will be involved from the outset of the project.

The project aims to strengthen the response to epidemics in Colombia and the LAC countries with similar contexts in: stakeholder, socio-technical and gender barrier identification; local adaptation of tools, epidemic e-training kits and a training program; co-development of new analytical packages on real-time vaccination data, serological survey tools and mosquito-borne diseases; reducing the gender gaps in data analytics by addressing gaps in gender-disaggregated data and adding gender-relevant questions; operationalizing tools; and building a community of users that is diverse and inclusive, engages government and academic stakeholders and enhances women’s role in science and data use in the response to epidemics in the LAC region.