In January 2021 the Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense released its latest report: The Apollo Program for Biodefense. Issued in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the report draws upon earlier findings of the Commission to call for a “moon shot”-style investment to prepare the US (and the world) for the ongoing reality of large-scale biological threats.
The report has four major recommendations:
- Implement the previously-released National Blueprint for Biodefense (which validated our current predicament)
- Produce a national strategy that covers both the science and technology required
- Develop a cross-cutting budget for the US government, and
- Appropriate multi-year funding to implement the plan
One of the recommendations I was pleased to see was the call for a national public health data system. Though few specifics are offered, the report indicates that, “To be successful, the system must be able to efficiently integrate, curate, and analyze data promptly from federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial public health agencies.” This is a worthwhile goal given our current fragmented and decentralized assortment of public health surveillance and monitoring systems. Data Modernization at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) provides a roadmap to provide a “comprehensive strategy to modernize data, technology, and workforce capabilities” for public health. While fifty-eight jurisdictions were awarded cooperative agreements with CDC to assess and implement data modernization activities, it is important that these participants look beyond solving their own jurisdiction-specific data management issues to a broader set of cross-jurisdictional data sharing problems that continue to cripple our ability to respond to large-scale events.