Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) has been funded by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency to develop tools that enhance situational awareness in infectious disease surveillance. We have applied the concept of the surveillance window to the development of a cross platform app (SWAP). This app allows the user to place information on case counts or disease occurrence in a specific location within the context of a historical outbreak curve to help determine whether prevention or mitigation action should be taken. By placing a frame of reference for where a case count is during an outbreak (in the early, peak, or late stages) and indicating whether the unfolding events are still within a surveillance window that would allow for feasible control, the app provides enhanced situational awareness of a decision maker. This tool therefore increases the granularity of situational awareness available to any user in the global biosurveillance community.
Objective
The goal of this project is to develop a cross platform app that contextualizes incoming information during an infectious disease outbreak based on historical data. The app makes use of a surveillance window concept in order to support decision making. This effort is part of a larger project with the goal of developing reference tools and analytics to provide decision-makers with timely information to predict, prepare for, and mitigate the spread of disease.