What we do
The SPARK Consortium will:
- Develop regional capacity in quantitative methods and modelling
- Develop innovative methods and tools for adaptive decision-making to inform disease prevention, control and elimination, and ensure sustainable in-country expertise to support their use.
- Promote the development of core International Health Regulations (IHR) capacities across the region, relevant to ARREST objectives of building capacity to detect and respond to infectious diseases:
- Surveillance –we will develop innovative methods for effective use of disease intelligence, and integration with other sources including non-health data for information gain in models and tools to support infectious disease preparedness, adaptive control and response;
- Preparedness – we will assist with development of national and subnational control and response plans and policies, including embedded risk assessment algorithms and decision support tools;
- Human Resources – we will support development of needed capacity in quantitative analytic skills, communication and translation of evidence for decision making, public health leadership, and uptake of evidence into policy and practice.
A key challenge for managing infectious diseases is that endemic and epidemic infectious diseases occur over vastly different timeframes, meaning that there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach or solution. Modelling and decision science approaches provide useful frameworks in the development process to address this challenge. Concurrent development of quantitative skills and literacy across research and public health/policy domains will enable sustainable use of such evidence for decision making.
SPARK collaborates closely with SPECTRUM CRE, a consortium that focuses on supporting modelling capacity in Australia. You can learn more about SPECTRUM here: