CDC Launches New Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) this week announced the launch of the Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics (CFA), which seeks to enhance the nation’s ability to use data, models, and analytics to enable timely, effective decision-making in response to public health threats for CDC and its public health partners.

CFA’s goals are to improve outbreak response using infectious disease modeling and analytics and to provide support to leaders at the federal, state, and local levels. CFA will additionally develop a program to provide insights about infectious disease events to the public to inform individual decision-making, the equivalent of the National Weather Service for infectious diseases.

CFA’s work will be focused on three main pillars: to predict, inform, and innovate. CFA has begun to build a world-class outbreak analytics team with experts across several disciplines to develop faster, richer evidence to predict trends and guide decision-making during emergencies. CFA is hiring expert communicators to regularly share insights with federal, state, and local partners and the public. CFA will additionally continue to advance the state of science of outbreak data, models, and analytics to improve the nation’s ability to respond to health emergencies.

Planning for CFA began in August 2021 with the initial funding of $200 million from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). CDC has awarded $26 million thus far in funding to academic institutions and federal partners to advance modeling and forecasting methodology with an emphasis on workforce development and health equity.

Additional information from the CDC is available here.