Community Flu 1.0
Flu.gov: One stop access to U.S. Government Pandemic Influenza information managed by the Department of Health and Human Services.
CommunityFlu is a software program that simulates the spread of influenza through a model community, and the impact of a variety of potential interventions (e.g., vaccinations, school closings, wearing of face masks, patient and household isolation/self quarantine). CommunityFlu also calculates the cost, in terms of workdays lost, of influenza and the associated interventions.
On this page:
- Type of Mathematical Model
- Recommended Users of Model
- Outcome Products of the Model
- Model Runs
- Data Input
- Data Output
- Help features
- System Requirements
- Disclaimer
- References
Download CommunityFlu 1.0 Software Now
What type of mathematical model is CommunityFlu?
CommunityFlu is an “individual agent” model, which means that it tracks, on a daily basis, the transmission of influenza among each individual person that populates a representative community. CommunityFlu tracks, for each person, their daily contacts in a variety of locales such as home, school, and workplace. Each contact represents a chance for the disease to spread from an infectious person to a disease susceptible person. The representative community comprises approximately 1,000 households with 2,500 persons. Each person in CommunityFlu’s community belongs to a household or a long term care facility. Depending upon age, a member can attend a daycare center, school, or workplace. School age children in the CommunityFlu community, for example, may attend one of four elementary schools, two middle schools, or one high school.
Who should use CommunityFlu?
CommunityFlu is designed to enable public health officials, policy makers, and students of infectious diseases to examine the spread of influenza pandemic through a community. It is also designed to be used by persons who are interested in producing simulations regarding the spread of influenza and the impact of using specific interventions. We believe that a person with intermediate computer spreadsheet skills can readily use CommunityFlu. There is no need for programming skills or experience. A user interacts with CommunityFlu solely through the spreadsheet portion of the program.
What does CommunityFlu produce?
CommunityFlu allows users to model the potential impact of using a variety of interventions (e.g. vaccinations, school closings, wearing face masks, and patient isolation) either singularly or in combinations that could reduce the spread of illness. CommunityFlu provides the user with estimates for the number of cases, hospitalizations, and deaths that may be seen among different age groups found in a representative community. CommunityFlu also allows a user to estimate the economic impact, in terms of days of work lost, of an influenza epidemic/pandemic in a community (e.g., a metropolitan area, state), thus calculating the savings and costs associated with one or more interventions.
How does the Model run simulations?
CommunityFlu is programmed to run 50 simulations per one cycle run. On most desktop or laptop computers (See “System Requirements” below), 50 simulations (1 cycle run) should take less than 5 minutes. A user first runs a set of 50 simulations for the baseline situation “no intervention”, and then runs another set of 50 simulations to model the impact of any intervention(s) selected by the user.
How does the user enter data into CommunityFlu?
There are approximately a total of 320 individual input values found in CommunityFlu. A user can choose to either use the default values shown or they can change any of the values that are displayed in the white text boxes throughout the software. The default input values that define the transmission of influenza in the representative community are taken from Haber et.al. (Emerging Infectious Disease 2007; 13:581-589: available at http://www.cdc.gov/eid/content/13/4/581.htm). At a minimum, a user must define what interventions they wish to model.
What type of output does CommunityFlu produce?
CommunityFlu produces results that are presented in a series of tables and graphs; which the user can cut-and-paste into presentations and/or reports as needed. The graphs and tables are designed to allow a direct comparison of simulated influenza epidemic/pandemic data with and without user-selected interventions.
Help Features
On each page of CommunityFlu you will see Help buttons. These buttons, when clicked, will provide pop-up windows containing explanations of the input data for that page, definitions of inputs and outputs, comments as to what values need to be entered, and how to interpret the results. There is also an extensive User Manual and a Quick Start Tutorial.
System Requirements
The CommunityFlu software program requires the use of the Windows* operating system (Microsoft Windows XP) and the Excel program (Microsoft Office 2003 or higher). We recommend using a computer that has at least a processor with a minimum of 1GB of RAM (operating memory), a 2.5 GHZ speed, and at least 15 MB of free storage memory on the computer’s hard drive. CommunityFlu may run slower on machines with slower processors and on older versions of Windows (e.g. Windows 2000).
We have successfully loaded and run CommunityFlu on a variety of desktop and laptop computers using the Windows operating system. CommunityFlu is not designed to run on Apple* or machines that use other operating systems such as Linux*.
[*the use of trade named products is for information purposes only. The U.S. Federal Government or its agencies do not endorse any specific computer or operating system]
Before loading and starting CommunityFlu, you must change Excel’s security level by following the steps listed below:
- Open a blank Excel spreadsheet.
- Click Tools and then click Macro, choose Security.
- Set Security Level to Medium.
- Click OK. You are now ready to open CommunityFlu (once you have downloaded the program – see below).
- Select the “inter_call” file from the CommunityFlu folder off the C:\ drive.
- When asked to Disable Macros or Enable Macros, click Enable Macros.
- When asked to Update or Don’t Update links, click Don’t Update.
Disclaimer
Please keep in mind that this is a test version of the software. The numbers generated through the use of CommunityFlu 1.0 should not be considered predictions of what will actually occur during a pandemic. Rather, they should be treated as estimates of what could happen.
References
- Haber MJ, et.al. Effectiveness of Interventions to Reduce Contact Rates during a Simulated Influenza Pandemic. Emerging Infectious Diseases 2007; 13(4). Available on the web at: http://www.cdc.gov/eid/content/13/4/581-app.htm.
- U.S. Census Bureau. Year 2000 data. Available on the Web at: http://www.census.gov/main/www/cen2000.html
- Longini IM, Halloran ME, Nizam A, Yang Y. Containing Pandemic Influenza with Antiviral Agents. American Journal of Epidemiology 2004; 59:623–633.
- Longini IM, et.al. Containing Pandemic Influenza at the Source. Science 2005; 309: 1083–1087.
- Elveback LR, et.al. An Influenza Simulation Model for Immunization Studies. American Journal of Epidemiology 1976; 3 (2):152–165.
- Meltzer MI, Cox NJ, Fukada K. The Economic Impact of Pandemic Influenza in the United States: Priorities for Intervention. Emerging Infectious Disease 1999; 5(5):659–671.
- U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. Available on the Web at: http://bea.gov/regional.
- Bureau of Labor Statistics. Available on the web at: http://www.ls.gov/cpa/cpsaat22.pdf
Page last updated August 25, 2009