What are we doing to help?
Our Student Epidemic Action Leaders (SEAL) program trains graduate students in field epidemiology skills such as outbreak investigation and interviewing, then deploys them to provide critical, short-term assistance to state and local health departments. Our highly trained SEAL Team members have gone through orientation and are supporting local and state health agencies in the response to 2019-nCoV. They have committed over 100 hours a week to support contact tracing as well as active monitoring and data support.
In addition, the Office of the Dean has committed the time and services of Associate Dean for Public Health Practice Janet Baseman, a professor of epidemiology, to coordinate with state and local health agencies. Baseman also represents the School on the University of Washington's Advisory Committee on Communicable Diseases.
The University of Washington MetaCenter for Pandemic Preparedness and Global Health Security aims to save lives by limiting the extent of infectious disease epidemics. The center fosters a bold, interdisciplinary, comprehensive, and integrated systems approach spearheaded by top scientists and practitioners that focuses on improving readiness before epidemics hit. MetaCenter experts are poised to assist local and global health agencies, and have held a public forum, "Coronavirus and Pandemic Disease Preparedness: What We Know and the Way Forward". Watch Recording
Elizabeth "Betz" Halloran, a professor of biostatistics and member of the Fred Hutch, has partnered with Northeastern University and others on a preliminary assessment of the international spreading risk associated with the outbreak.
