PROJECT TRANSFORM
Improving the Speed and Efficacy of Outbreak Investigation Capabilities across the U.S.
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Effective outbreak response depends on timely insights into pathogen transmission. Historical
lessons—from Ebola and smallpox to COVID-19—show that understanding transmission
dynamics enables faster, more effective, and less disruptive interventions. However, generating
these insights in real time requires rigorous outbreak investigations (OIs): coordinated efforts to
trace cases, map transmission chains to collect key pieces of intelligence: source, route, time-course of infectiousness, the environmental and behavioral drivers and mitigators of spread, and the effectiveness of countermeasures in decreasing transmission.
In the U.S., conducting and synthesizing OI findings remains a significant operational challenge. States vary in how public health responsibilities are organized, making it difficult to adapt successful approaches across jurisdictions. As a result, the U.S. often lags behind peer countries in producing and using “transmission intelligence” during outbreaks.
The Transmission-informed Outbreak Response & Mitigation Project (Project TransFORM) seeks
to strengthen the speed and effectiveness of outbreak investigations across U.S. jurisdictions.
Our approach is to develop a set of universal exercises and simulations that test the speed and effectiveness of each step of outbreak investigations of a variety of pathogens and contexts. The outcomes of these exercises provides baseline cross-jurisdiction comparable measurements of OI speed and effectiveness, that can help public health leaders optimize their processes, improve coordination across jurisdictions and facilitate collective learning.
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