Activity 4: Wrap Up

For Everyone

What to know

This last activity builds on the previous recommendations and decisions made for respiratory season preparedness. It includes a case study to illustrate how modeling can help evaluate past public health decisions.

Overview

This case study builds off the previous lessons learned in Part 1 and the previous activities about surge staffing in hospitals. It asks you to look back on the surge staffing decision and help the governor communicate a justification.

Case Study

The respiratory virus season is over. It was a record year for respiratory viruses but with the additional staff, none of your local hospitals were overwhelmed. However, the governor's office is beginning to receive scrutinizing questions about whether the use of public funds on hospital surge staffing was truly necessary. Thinking back on what you learned, what kind of modeling output could help you justify your public health intervention?

Conclusion

Congratulations! You have completed the Practical Modeling Concepts for Public Health training series.

In this series, you:

  1. Learned use cases of forecasting and modeling in public health, specifically in infectious disease preparedness and response
  2. Discussed the interpretation of modeling results for decision-making
  3. Practiced communicating model results based on a realistic scenario

Thank you for your time and attention in taking this training series.

Please share any training feedback you may have by contacting us at contact.cfa@cdc.gov.