Future Public Health Threats Research Articles

Global Health Priority Box─Proactive Pandemic Preparedness.

The coronavirus pandemic outbreak of 2019 highlighted the critical importance of preparedness for current and future public health threats (https://www.mmv.org/mmv-open/global-health-priority-box/about-global-health-priority-box). While the main attention for the past few years has been on COVID-19 research, this focus has reduced global resources on research in other areas, including malaria and neglected tropical diseases (NTDs). Such a shift in focus puts at risk the hard-earned progress in global health achieved over the past two decades (https://www.who.int/news-room/spotlight/10-global-health-issues-to-track-in-2021). To address the urgent need for new drugs to combat drug-resistant malaria, emerging zoonotic diseases, and vector control, Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV) and Innovative Vector Control Consortium (IVCC) assembled a collection of 240 compounds and, in August 2022, launched the Global Health Priority Box (GHPB). This collection of compounds has confirmed activity against emerging pathogens or vectors and is available free of charge. This valuable tool enables researchers worldwide to build on each other's work and save precious time and resources by providing a starting point for the further development of treatments and insecticides. Furthermore, this open access box aligns with two of the many priorities outlined by the World Health Organization (WHO) (https://www.who.int/news-room/spotlight/10-global-health-issues-to-track-in-2021).

Lessons From Leading During a Pandemic: An Exploratory Study of Public Health Leadership Insights on Training, Preparation, and Experiences From the Field During COVID-19.

The public health workforce encountered challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic that exposed areas for improvement in preparation for future public health threats. Key among these is well-trained public health leaders equipped with an array of crisis leadership skills. To examine the training background, assess the perceived preparedness, and garner recommendations for training of the future public health workforce from public health leaders who navigated the COVID-19 pandemic. This exploratory research gleaned information by utilizing an online questionnaire and interviews to provide lessons learned regarding improvements needed for public health leader preparedness. Three California public health departments representing urban, suburban, and rural populations. Thirty public health leaders who were directly involved in public health work for ≥3years in a leadership/management role and involved in COVID-19-related work for at least 6months participated. Questionnaire findings revealed gaps in crisis leadership, communication, and collaboration training. Interview results supported and expanded upon the quantitative findings, including the value of various competencies and recommendations to improve the preparedness of future public health leaders. The findings suggested that although many of the skills needed are competencies for accredited public health training programs, effective leadership during public health emergencies may require additional training beyond what is generally provided. Recommendations include integrating study findings into public health training programs to address competency gaps, leveraging results to enhance leadership skills, and promoting collaboration between public health departments and academic institutions to develop evidence-informed crisis leadership training. These findings inform strategies to ensure the preparedness of the public health workforce for future crises.

Qualitative Research Approaches in Assessing Challenges During the Pandemic Covid-19

A prosperous family refers to a situation in which a family has adequate access to the physical, economic, social and health resources needed to meet basic needs and improve the quality of life. This article discusses the findings from qualitative data on the new normal life among Malaysians after the COVID-19 pandemic. The methodology used is in line with the objective of building a New Norm Life Model after the COVID-19 pandemic. Round table discussion which involved representatives from several ministries like Ministry of Energy, Science, Technology and Innovation, the Ministry of Education Malaysia, the Ministry of Digital Communications Malaysia, the Ministry of Finance Malaysia, and the Ministry of Health Malaysia. As a result, the government can come out with a better strategy and respond to future public health threats by streamlining physical and digital infrastructure and an adequate and efficient workforce. The government plays a significant role in creating an environment that supports the creation of a prosperous family through policies, social programs, and community empowerment.

COVID-19 Pandemic Risk Assessment: Systematic Review.

The COVID-19 pandemic presents the possibility of future large-scale infectious disease outbreaks. In response, we conducted a systematic review of COVID-19 pandemic risk assessment to provide insights into countries' pandemic surveillance and preparedness for potential pandemic events in the post-COVID-19 era. We aim to systematically identify relevant articles and synthesize pandemic risk assessment findings to facilitate government officials and public health experts in crisis planning. This study followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) guidelines and included over 620,000 records from the World Health Organization COVID-19 Research Database. Articles related to pandemic risk assessment were identified based on a set of inclusion and exclusion criteria. Relevant articles were characterized based on study location, variable types, data-visualization techniques, research objectives, and methodologies. Findings were presented using tables and charts. Sixty-two articles satisfying both the inclusion and exclusion criteria were identified. Among the articles, 32.3% focused on local areas, while another 32.3% had a global coverage. Epidemic data were the most commonly used variables (74.2% of articles), with over half of them (51.6%) employing two or more variable types. The research objectives covered various aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic, with risk exposure assessment and identification of risk factors being the most common theme (35.5%). No dominant research methodology for risk assessment emerged from these articles. Our synthesized findings support proactive planning and development of prevention and control measures in anticipation of future public health threats.

An innovative technological infrastructure for managing SARS-CoV-2 data across different cohorts in compliance with General Data Protection Regulation.

The ORCHESTRA project, funded by the European Commission, aims to create a pan-European cohort built on existing and new large-scale population cohorts to help rapidly advance the knowledge related to the prevention of the SARS-CoV-2 infection and the management of COVID-19 and its long-term sequelae. The integration and analysis of the very heterogeneous health data pose the challenge of building an innovative technological infrastructure as the foundation of a dedicated framework for data management that should address the regulatory requirements such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The three participating Supercomputing European Centres (CINECA - Italy, CINES - France and HLRS - Germany) designed and deployed a dedicated infrastructure to fulfil the functional requirements for data management to ensure sensitive biomedical data confidentiality/privacy, integrity, and security. Besides the technological issues, many methodological aspects have been considered: Berlin Institute of Health (BIH), Charité provided its expertise both for data protection, information security, and data harmonisation/standardisation. The resulting infrastructure is based on a multi-layer approach that integrates several security measures to ensure data protection. A centralised Data Collection Platform has been established in the Italian National Hub while, for the use cases in which data sharing is not possible due to privacy restrictions, a distributed approach for Federated Analysis has been considered. A Data Portal is available as a centralised point of access for non-sensitive data and results, according to findability, accessibility, interoperability, and reusability (FAIR) data principles. This technological infrastructure has been used to support significative data exchange between population cohorts and to publish important scientific results related to SARS-CoV-2. Considering the increasing demand for data usage in accordance with the requirements of the GDPR regulations, the experience gained in the project and the infrastructure released for the ORCHESTRA project can act as a model to manage future public health threats. Other projects could benefit from the results achieved by ORCHESTRA by building upon the available standardisation of variables, design of the architecture, and process used for GDPR compliance.

Microevolution and Its Impact on Hypervirulence, Antimicrobial Resistance, and Vaccine Escape in Neisseria meningitidis.

Neisseria meningitidis is commensal of the human pharynx and occasionally invades the host, causing the life-threatening illness invasive meningococcal disease. The meningococcus is a highly diverse and adaptable organism thanks to natural competence, a propensity for recombination, and a highly repetitive genome. These mechanisms together result in a high level of antigenic variation to invade diverse human hosts and evade their innate and adaptive immune responses. This review explores the ways in which this diversity contributes to the evolutionary history and population structure of the meningococcus, with a particular focus on microevolution. It examines studies on meningococcal microevolution in the context of within-host evolution and persistent carriage; microevolution in the context of meningococcal outbreaks and epidemics; and the potential of microevolution to contribute to antimicrobial resistance and vaccine escape. A persistent theme is the idea that the process of microevolution contributes to the development of new hyperinvasive meningococcal variants. As such, microevolution in this species has significant potential to drive future public health threats in the form of hypervirulent, antibiotic-resistant, vaccine-escape variants. The implications of this on current vaccination strategies are explored.

Perceived Discrimination in Australia During the COVID-19 Pandemic: a Longitudinal Study.

There have been global reports of increased discrimination during the COVID-19 pandemic relative to the pre-pandemic era, though this has not been well explored within Australia. The aim of the study was to characterise discriminatory behaviour experienced by groups previously identified as most at risk of experiencing discrimination (i.e. those of Asian descent or healthcare workers) both from pre-pandemic to pandemic and during the pandemic era in Australia. From April 2020 to September 2021, 1479 Australian adults completed the everyday discrimination scale (EDS). Initially, participants were asked to retrospectively consider discrimination experienced pre-COVID-19 pandemic and then to consider experiences in the past month during the pandemic. Participants were invited to repeat the latter every 2 months. Collectively, there was a reduction in EDS scores from pre-pandemic to pandemic. Within the pandemic era, mean trajectory graphs across time revealed that changes in EDS scores in the 'non-Asian healthcare workers' and 'Asian healthcare workers' subgroups tended to mirror onto fluctuations in Australian COVID-19 case numbers. Our findings suggest social solidarity amongst the general Australian population during the pandemic, but still highlight a need to dedicate resources towards groups with heightened risk of experiencing discrimination during future public health threats.

Barriers to COVID-19 Prevention Measures Among People Experiencing Homelessness with Substance Use Disorder or Serious Mental Illness.

People experiencing homelessness (PEH) are at disproportionate risk of becoming infected and having severe illness from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), especially when residing in congregate settings like homeless shelters. Behavioral health problems related to substance use disorder (SUD) and severe mental illness (SMI) may have created additional challenges for PEH to practice prevention measures like mask wearing, physical distancing, handwashing, and quarantine and isolation. The study objective was to understand the perceived barriers PEH face regarding COVID-19 non-pharmaceutical prevention strategies and identify recommendations for overcoming barriers. From August-October 2020, qualitative phone interviews with 50 purposively selected behavioral health professionals across the United States serving PEH with SUD or SMI were conducted. Professionals described that PEH faced barriers to prevention that were structural (e.g., access to necessary resources), behavioral (related to SUD or SMI), or related to the priority of other needs. Recommendations to overcome these barriers included providing free prevention resources (e.g., masks and hand sanitizer), providing education about importance of prevention strategies, and prioritizing access to stable housing. Interviews took place before COVID-19 vaccines were available, so barriers to vaccination are not included in this paper. Findings can help support tailored approaches during COVID-19 and future public health threats.

Evaluating event-based surveillance capacity in Africa: Use of the Africa CDC scorecard, 2022–2023

IntroductionEvent-based surveillance (EBS) is a critical component of Early Warning, Alert and Response (EWAR) capacity needed for outbreak prevention and control. To better understand existing EBS and monitor the progress of capacity-building efforts over time, Africa CDC developed an EBS scorecard as part of a revision to the EBS Framework. MethodsWe distributed the scorecard to African Union (AU) Member States (MSs). Survey responses from the MSs’ human health sector were aggregated, cleaned, and analysed. MS, regional, and continental EBS capacity was assessed. ResultsBetween 21 July 2022 and 4 April 2023, a total of 63 respondents representing 49 (89%) of 55 MSs completed the survey. Given Africa CDC’s public health mandate, we acknowledged the importance of One Health collaboration in MSs but focused on and analysed only the human health sector responses. Thirty-four (71%) MSs stated having EBS in place; hotline was the most common type of EBS implemented (76%). Seventeen (50%) MSs reported multisectoral, One Health collaboration as part of EBS implementation. Scorecard outcomes showed a minimal (score of <60%) to average (score between 60–80%) level of EBS capacity in 29 and five (5) MSs respectively. DiscussionCurrent EBS capacity levels need to be strengthened in Africa to ensure the continent remains prepared for future public health threats. The Africa CDC EBS scorecard provides a useful way to measure and track this capacity over time. Results can be used to advocate for and target resources for capacity building to foster public health emergency preparedness efforts.

Enhancing corporate readiness for and resilience to future public health threats, development and deployment of the public health readiness and resilience (PHRR) assessment tool.

As the world suffered through the COVID-19 pandemic, it is increasingly clear that the health of populations is foundational to a high-functioning economy, corporate well-being, and a core driver of social justice. Thus, companies need to understand how to become more resilient to current and future threats. This study (1) explored dimensions of resilience from a public health risk-specific lens and reviewed existing evaluation tools and frameworks to develop a methodology and framework (Public Health Readiness and Resilience-PHRR Assessment Tool) for organizations; and (2) leveraged the framework to evaluate a sample of large corporations to validate the insights the tool can provide, confirm functionality, and evaluate the ability to leverage publicly available vs. propriety data to complete the assessment. We conducted a non-exhaustive search for relevant indices using key word searches and cascade sampling. For the initial review of indices (n = 24), the team evaluated each document based on predefined criteria. Gaps identified in the available indices informed the development of the PHRR assessment tool. The tool was then used to examine real-world companies (n = 22) from eight different industries. Findings from the PHRR tool illustrated variation in readiness and resilience as well as the availability of data. Approximately half of the companies analyzed (n = 11) indicated high levels of potential resilience and readiness with significant data available. Leveraging the PHRR Assessment Tool can inform investments and cross-sector partnerships that enhance companies' readiness and resilience to a variety of public health threats. Additional research is needed to further validate this tool.

No time for complacency on COVID-19 in Europe

No time for complacency on COVID-19 in Europe

Kako učimo iz vanrednih situacija u javnom zdravlju? - obučavanje stručnjaka iz oblasti javnog zdravlja o proverama prilikom i nakon sprovođenja mera tokom pandemije COVID-19

Public health crises require continuous learning to improve preparedness and response to future public health threats. Intra- and after-action reviews (IAR/AAR), as part of the Monitoring and Evaluation Framework under the International Health Regulations (IHR, 2005), constitute important elements for initiating and implementing learning processes during and after public health events. However, in the early COVID-19 pandemic, experience with these formats was limited and there were few opportunities for exchange. As part of the Joint Action SHARP, we conducted two virtual trainings and a peer-to-peer review workshop in 2021 and 2022 to address this need. The trainings and workshop entailed an overview of the IAR/AAR methodology as well as practical exercises and interactive elements. Participants, generally, increased their understanding of IAR/ AARs and welcomed the opportunity for networking and exchange. We conclude that such trainings should be offered more broadly and possibly be expanded to build and maintain workforce capacities for learning from crises.

ODP205 Hepatic steatosis induced by Nicotine plus Coca Cola is prevented by Nicotinamide riboside (NR) that increases mitochondrial NAD+

Abstract Type 2 diabetes has emerged as an important risk factor for poor prognosis in hospitalized patients with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Hyperglycemia can independently predispose the patients with SARS-CoV-2 to adverse outcomes, irrespective of the diagnosis of diabetes.1 Despite the accentuated risk, there is limited evidence about the complex interplay of undiagnosed diabetes and SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia on the clinical outcomes. We propose to investigate the cardiovascular events and clinical outcomes in patients with undiagnosed and type 2 diabetes hospitalized with SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia. Methods This retrospective study included patients hospitalized with SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia between March 7, 2020, through March 30, 2021. The diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia required a positive reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) for SARS-CoV-2, presence of new or worsening pulmonary infiltrates on computed tomography scan or chest X-ray, and at least one of the following: new or increased cough, a temperature of &amp;gt;37.8 °C or dyspnea. The diagnosis of undiagnosed diabetes was determined in patients with no previous history of diabetes and glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) ≥ 6.5% (48 mmol/mol) or an admission serum glucose ≥ 200 mg/dL (≥ 11.1 mmol/mol). The outcomes included in-hospital cardiovascular events, intensive care unit (ICU) admissions and in-hospital mortality. Logistic regression was used to estimate adjusted odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for association of undiagnosed diabetes and type 2 diabetes for individual outcomes. Results Among the 1,645 adults hospitalized with SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia, 107 (10.8%) patients were identified with undiagnosed diabetes and 634 (39%) had established diagnosis of type 2 diabetes. Patients with undiagnosed diabetes had increased odds of developing cardiovascular events (OR: 1.73, 95% CI 1. 07, 2.80), ICU admissions (OR: 1.61, 95% CI 1.10, 2.34), and mortality (OR: 1.77, 95% CI 1. 02, 3. 07), compared to patients type 2 diabetes and no diabetes. A prior history of type 2 diabetes was not significantly associated with primary study outcomes. Conclusions Patients with undiagnosed diabetes hospitalized with SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia have an increased risk of developing cardiovascular complications and overall poor clinical outcomes compared to patients with type 2 diabetes and no diabetes. Implementation of healthcare-wide strategies for screening and early intervention of prediabetes and diabetes are needed to improve the disease outcomes in the current pandemic and future public health threats. References Khunti, K., et al., COVID-19, Hyperglycemia, and New-Onset Diabetes. Diabetes Care, 2021. 44(12): p. 2645-2655. Presentation: Saturday, June 11, 2022 1:00 p.m. - 2:00 p.m., Sunday, June 12, 2022 12:30 p.m. - 2:30 p.m.

ODP633 Impact of Undiagnosed Diabetes on Cardiovascular Events and Clinical outcomes in Patients Hospitalized with COVID-19 Pneumonia

Abstract Type 2 diabetes has emerged as an important risk factor for poor prognosis in hospitalized patients with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Hyperglycemia can independently predispose the patients with SARS-CoV-2 to adverse outcomes, irrespective of the diagnosis of diabetes 1. Despite the accentuated risk, there is limited evidence about the complex interplay of undiagnosed diabetes and SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia on the clinical outcomes. We propose to investigate the cardiovascular events and clinical outcomes in patients with undiagnosed and type 2 diabetes hospitalized with SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia. Methods This retrospective study included patients hospitalized with SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia between March 7, 2020, through March 30, 2021. The diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia required a positive reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) for SARS-CoV-2, presence of new or worsening pulmonary infiltrates on computed tomography scan or chest X-ray, and at least one of the following: new or increased cough, a temperature of &amp;gt;37.8 °C or dyspnea. The diagnosis of undiagnosed diabetes was determined in patients with no previous history of diabetes and glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) ≥ 6.5% (48 mmol/mol) or an admission serum glucose ≥ 200 mg/dL (≥ 11.1 mmol/mol). The outcomes included in-hospital cardiovascular events, intensive care unit (ICU) admissions and in-hospital mortality. Logistic regression was used to estimate adjusted odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for association of undiagnosed diabetes and type 2 diabetes for individual outcomes. Results Among the 1,645 adults hospitalized with SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia, 107 (10.8%) patients were identified with undiagnosed diabetes and 634 (39%) had established diagnosis of type 2 diabetes. Patients with undiagnosed diabetes had increased odds of developing cardiovascular events (OR: 1.73, 95% CI 1. 07, 2.80), ICU admissions (OR: 1.61, 95% CI 1.10, 2.34), and mortality (OR: 1.77, 95% CI 1. 02, 3. 07), compared to patients type 2 diabetes and no diabetes. A prior history of type 2 diabetes was not significantly associated with primary study outcomes. Conclusions Patients with undiagnosed diabetes hospitalized with SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia have an increased risk of developing cardiovascular complications and overall poor clinical outcomes compared to patients with type 2 diabetes and no diabetes. Implementation of healthcare-wide strategies for screening and early intervention of prediabetes and diabetes are needed to improve the disease outcomes in the current pandemic and future public health threats. References Khunti, K., et al., COVID-19, Hyperglycemia, and New-Onset Diabetes. Diabetes Care, 2021. 44(12): p. 2645-2655. Presentation: Sunday, June 12, 2022 12:30 p.m. - 2:30 p.m.

European HPC cloud infrastructure for managing SARS-CoV-2 data in compliance with GDPR

Abstract The Connecting European SARS-CoV-2 Cohorts to Increase Common and Effective Response to SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic (ORCHESTRA) consortium, led by University of Verona (Italy), brings together key European academic experts and research institutions in infectious diseases, data management and High Performance Computing (HPC) from 26 organizations (extending to 37 partners) from 15 countries. The project aims to create a new pan-European cohort built on existing and new large-scale population cohorts in European and non-European countries to significantly impact on the responsiveness to SARS-CoV-2. The integration and analysis of the very heterogeneous characteristics of SARS-CoV-2 data coming from many different sources such as EHR, retrospective and prospective patient registries, and related ‘omics’ data (incl. genomics, proteomics and transcriptomics) can benefit of data analytics enabled by HPC, where both high compute performance and fast storage capabilities are immensely important. During the first year of the project, a dedicated HPC cloud infrastructure have been designed and partially deployed to fulfill the functional requirements for data management ensuring healthcare data confidentiality/privacy, integrity and security in compliance with the European GDPR regulations. The result is an infrastructure for Data Management composed by three main layers: National Data Providers; National Hubs (one for each HPC center involved: CINECA - Italy, CINES - France and HLRS - Germany), to centralize data at national level and to support data storage, sharing and analysis on data ingested from the National Data Providers; ORCHESTRA Data Portal: the pan-European portal for sharing aggregated data and results. Currently data collection is on going; at the end of the project, clinical centers are expected to have enrolled more than 10.000 patients with about 50.000 samples for the prospective studies. Key messages • The SARS-CoV-2 crisis made evident the need to manage and analyse very heterogeneous health data coming from many different resources across different countries. • The HPC cloud infrastructure released for the Orchestra project can act as a model to manage future public health threats.

Willingness to share contacts in case of COVID-19 positivity-predictors of collaboration resistance in a nation-wide Italian survey.

BackgroundThe unwillingness to share contacts is one of the least explored aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Here we report the factors associated with resistance to collaborate on contact tracing, based on the results of a nation-wide survey conducted in Italy in January-March 2021.Methods and findingsThe repeated cross-sectional on-line survey was conducted among 7,513 respondents (mean age 45.7, 50.4% women) selected to represent the Italian adult population 18–70 years old. Two groups were defined based on the direct question response expressing (1) unwillingness or (2) willingness to share the names of individuals with whom respondents had contact. We selected 70% of participants (training data set) to produce several multivariable binomial generalized linear models and estimated the proportion of variation explained by the model by McFadden R2, and the model’s discriminatory ability by the index of concordance. Then, we have validated the regression models using the remaining 30% of respondents (testing data set), and identified the best performing model by removing the variables based on their impact on the Akaike information criterion and then evaluating the model predictive accuracy. We also performed a sensitivity analysis using principal component analysis.Overall, 5.5% of the respondents indicated that in case of positive SARS-CoV-2 test they would not share contacts. Of note, this percentage varied from 0.8% to 46.5% depending on the answers to other survey questions. From the 139 questions included in the multivariable analysis, the initial model proposed 20 independent factors that were reduced to the 6 factors with only modest changes in the model performance. The 6-variables model demonstrated good performance in the training (c-index 0.85 and McFadden R2 criteria 0.25) and in the testing data set (93.3% accuracy, AUC 0.78, sensitivity 30.4% and specificity 97.4%). The most influential factors related to unwillingness to share contacts were the lack of intention to perform the test in case of contact with a COVID-19 positive individual (OR 5.60, 95% CI 4.14 to 7.58, in a fully adjusted multivariable analysis), disagreement that the government should be allowed to force people into self-isolation (OR 1.79, 95% CI 1.12 to 2.84), disagreement with the national vaccination schedule (OR 2.63, 95% CI 1.86 to 3.69), not following to the preventive anti-COVID measures (OR 3.23, 95% CI 1.85 to 5.59), the absence of people in the immediate social environment who have been infected with COVID-19 (1.66, 95% CI 1.24 to 2.21), as well as difficulties in finding or understanding the information about the infection or related recommendations. A limitation of this study is the under-representation of persons not participating in internet-based surveys and some vulnerable groups like homeless people, persons with disabilities or migrants.ConclusionsOur analysis revealed several groups that expressed unwillingness to collaborate on contact tracing. The identified patterns may play a principal role not only in the COVID-19 epidemic but also be important for possible future public health threats, and appropriate interventions for their correction should be developed and ready for the implementation.

Ethical values and principles to guide the fair allocation of resources in response to a pandemic: a rapid systematic review

BackgroundThe coronavirus 2019 pandemic placed unprecedented pressures on healthcare services and magnified ethical dilemmas related to how resources should be allocated. These resources include, among others, personal protective equipment, personnel, life-saving equipment, and vaccines. Decision-makers have therefore sought ethical decision-making tools so that resources are distributed both swiftly and equitably. To support the development of such a decision-making tool, a systematic review of the literature on relevant ethical values and principles was undertaken. The aim of this review was to identify ethical values and principles in the literature which relate to the equitable allocation of resources in response to an acute public health threat, such as a pandemic.MethodsA rapid systematic review was conducted using MEDLINE, EMBASE, Google Scholar, LitCOVID and relevant reference lists. The time period of the search was January 2000 to 6th April 2020, and the search was restricted to human studies. January 2000 was selected as a start date as the aim was to capture ethical values and principles within acute public health threat situations. No restrictions were made with regard to language. Ethical values and principles were extracted and examined thematically.ResultsA total of 1,618 articles were identified. After screening and application of eligibility criteria, 169 papers were included in the thematic synthesis. The most commonly mentioned ethical values and principles were: Equity, reciprocity, transparency, justice, duty to care, liberty, utility, stewardship, trust and proportionality. In some cases, ethical principles were conflicting, for example, Protection of the Public from Harm and Liberty.ConclusionsAllocation of resources in response to acute public health threats is challenging and must be simultaneously guided by many ethical principles and values. Ethical decision-making strategies and the prioritisation of different principles and values needs to be discussed with the public in order to prepare for future public health threats. An evidence-based tool to guide decision-makers in making difficult decisions is required. The equitable allocation of resources in response to an acute public health threat is challenging, and many ethical principles may be applied simultaneously. An evidence-based tool to support difficult decisions would be helpful to guide decision-makers.

OP7 Current State Assessment of Resilience Indices

As the world suffered through the COVID-19 pandemic, it became increasingly clear that the health of populations is foundational to a high-functioning economy, corporate well-being, and social justice. Thus, companies need to understand how population health and health equity will allow them to become more resilient to current and future threats. This study explores available indices measuring employee health and well-being, place-based health indicators, and preparedness measures to evaluate their relevance and applicability in helping businesses become more resilient to future public health threats.

Advancing genomic epidemiology by addressing the bioinformatics bottleneck: Challenges, design principles, and a Swiss example

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic led to a huge increase in global pathogen genome sequencing efforts, and the resulting data are becoming increasingly important to detect variants of concern, monitor outbreaks, and quantify transmission dynamics. However, this rapid up-scaling in data generation brought with it many IT infrastructure challenges. In this paper, we report about developing an improved system for genomic epidemiology. We (i) highlight key challenges that were exacerbated by the pandemic situation, (ii) provide data infrastructure design principles to address them, and (iii) give an implementation example developed by the Swiss SARS-CoV-2 Sequencing Consortium (S3C) in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Finally, we discuss remaining challenges to data infrastructure for genomic epidemiology. Improving these infrastructures will help better detect, monitor, and respond to future public health threats.

Coronavirus disease 2019, reproductive health, and public policy: lessons learned after two years of the ongoing pandemic—the American Society for Reproductive Medicine’s Center for Policy and Leadership

ObjectiveTo describe the experience of the ASRM COVID-19 Task Force over the past 2 years and to discuss lessons learned during the pandemic that can be applied to future public health crises.DesignDescriptive narrative.SubjectsNone.InterventionCreation of the ASRM COVID-19 Task Force in March 2020.Main Outcome MeasuresNone.ResultsEffective pandemic management requires a joint effort on the part of physicians, scientists, government agencies, subject area experts and funders.ConclusionReproduction is a fundamental human right that should be protected at all times. Advanced preparation for future pandemics should include appointment of a standing group of experts so that a response is both informed and immediate when a public health crisis arises. This approach will help ensure that the ultimate objective – preserving the safety and well-being of patients and health care workers – is fulfilled. The recommendations put forth in this paper from the ASRM’s Center for Policy and Leadership can be used as a template to prepare for future public health threats.