Washington State University received $2.6 million in federal funding to better understand and predict how infectious diseases behave and spread in healthcare settings and other small populations.
The National Institutes of Health awarded a five‑year, $1.8 million grant to develop methods and tools for modeling disease spread and dynamics in these populations. An additional three‑year grant from the CDC was awarded in the amount of $877,000. That funding will support three new fellowships focused on modeling infectious diseases, specifically in healthcare settings, according to an Oct. 6 news release.
"A lot of different groups in small, structured populations — like hospitals, universities, jails — wanted to make informed decisions about the trajectory of the COVID‑19 pandemic, but many of the techniques we use for modeling diseases are built for large populations, at a city, state or national level, and they don’t necessarily work well for small populations," said Eric Lofgren, PhD, professor in the Paul G. Allen School for Global Health at Washington State University, and principal investigator for the grants.
The phenomena of emerging infectious diseases accelerating once they reach the medical system has been well documented in severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) epidemics, and Ebola outbreaks. Additionally, one of the earliest major transmission events for COVID‑19 in the U.S. also occurred in a healthcare facility.
"This phenomenon is especially problematic as it impacts the health of the healthcare workforce, creating a feedback loop where sickened healthcare workers both accelerate the epidemic and are unable to care for patients when they are most needed," Dr. Lofgren said.