Epidemiological Approaches
The overall aim is to develop robust, evidence-based, patient-oriented epidemiological surveillance systems to enable PHE rapidly to identify and respond to new and emerging infections. This will require an interdisciplinary, One Health approach and the development of a flexible and active network of researchers and policy makers to build a platform for pro-active and reactive responses to novel threats.
The objectives are to:
- Examine whether real-time syndromic surveillance and rapid diagnostic approaches currently being assessed in diarrhoeal outbreaks can be applied to other disease syndromes.
- Determine whether analysing human syndromic surveillance data with novel methodologies for real-time syndromic forecasting, and incorporating relevant information from other disease databases, enhances our surveillance abilities.
- Investigate the behavioural beliefs and determinants of behaviours to minimise exposures to peridomestic rodents, and to ticks, among at-risk groups.
- Investigate the role of publically available data on passenger, trade and shipping movements to quantify the risk of a novel (or existing) pathogen with particular transmission characteristics being imported into the UK.
- Provide a detailed description of population subgroups within the UK at risk of exposure to major zoonotic transmission pathways.
- Develop the approaches to estimate the current probability of presence of pathogens, given climate and demographic variables, and predict changes in distribution using future forecasts.
- Use the detailed description of population sub-groups and their exposure risks in preparedness for future outbreaks and strategic planning.
- Extend the information on importation pathways to other new threats.
Theme Leaders
Dr Roberto Vivancos
Consultant Epidemiologist
Public Health England
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Dr Rob Christley
Senior Lecturer in Epidemiology
Institute of Infection and Global Health, University of Liverpool
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