Improved preparedness for future pandemics and other health crises through large-scale disease surveillance

Summary

”Improved preparedness for future pandemics and other health crises through large-scale disease surveillance” is an innovation environment. The enviroment is a collaboration between researchers at four different faculties at Lund University, Umeå University, Halmstad University and three other participating parties: Region Skåne, Region Halland and the biotechnology company Xerum AB. The Swedish name of the innovation environment is ”förbättrad beredskap för framtida pandemier och andra hälsokriser genom storskalig sjukdomsövervakning”.

The overall aim of the innovation environment is to develop new tools and computer infrastructures to improve preparedness for future pandemics, major disease outbreaks and other health crises in the population. In the development, we will use applied artificial intelligence, machine learning methods and other methods that are suitable for exploratory data analysis based on extensive amounts of data. Unique to our project is that all development will be done with great consideration to the diversity that exists in the population in terms of age, gender, country of birth, living and social conditions, health and underlying morbidity. By focusing on population diversity in platform and application development, we create the conditions for increased accuracy, gender equality and social sustainability in disease prevention initiatives during future pandemics and other health crises. We also enable precision health by further developing a biotechnological platform to be able to measure continuously the immunity of the population in a cost-effective manner, both in general and in specific groups that may otherwise be hard to reach due to geographical distance or other obstacles.