School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ, United States.
Center for Health Equity Research, College of Health and Human Services, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ, United States.
Front Public Health. 2024 May 31;12:1357908. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1357908. eCollection 2024.
Epidemiological models-which help us understand and forecast the spread of infectious disease-can be valuable tools for public health. However, barriers exist that can make it difficult to employ epidemiological models routinely within the repertoire of public health planning. These barriers include technical challenges associated with constructing the models, challenges in obtaining appropriate data for model parameterization, and problems with clear communication of modeling outputs and uncertainty. To learn about the unique barriers and opportunities within the state of Arizona, we gathered a diverse set of 48 public health stakeholders for a day-and-a-half forum. Our research group was motivated specifically by our work building software for public health-relevant modeling and by our earnest desire to collaborate closely with stakeholders to ensure that our software tools are practical and useful in the face of evolving public health needs. Here we outline the planning and structure of the forum, and we highlight as a case study some of the lessons learned from breakout discussions. While unique barriers exist for implementing modeling for public health, there is also keen interest in doing so across diverse sectors of State and Local government, although issues of equal and fair access to modeling knowledge and technologies remain key issues for future development. We found this forum to be useful for building relationships and informing our software development, and we plan to continue such meetings annually to create a continual feedback loop between academic molders and public health practitioners.
流行病学模型——帮助我们理解和预测传染病的传播——可以成为公共卫生的有用工具。然而，存在一些障碍，使得在公共卫生规划中常规使用流行病学模型变得困难。这些障碍包括构建模型相关的技术挑战、为模型参数化获取适当数据的挑战，以及建模结果和不确定性的清晰沟通问题。为了了解亚利桑那州特有的障碍和机遇，我们召集了 48 名不同的公共卫生利益相关者，举办了为期一天半的论坛。我们的研究小组特别受到为公共卫生相关建模构建软件的工作以及与利益相关者密切合作的强烈愿望的激励，以确保我们的软件工具在不断变化的公共卫生需求面前具有实用性和有用性。在这里，我们概述了论坛的规划和结构，并突出了一些从分组讨论中吸取的经验教训作为案例研究。虽然在为公共卫生实施建模方面存在独特的障碍，但州和地方政府的不同部门也有浓厚的兴趣，尽管公平和平等地获得建模知识和技术的问题仍然是未来发展的关键问题。我们发现这个论坛对于建立关系和为我们的软件开发提供信息很有用，我们计划每年继续举行这样的会议，在学术模具制造商和公共卫生从业者之间建立持续的反馈循环。
