Title: Improving the evidence base for risk assessment and risk reduction
Funder: Department of Health and Social Care

Abstract: Overall aims: To improve the evidence base and generate new quantitative risk assessment approaches that will inform and facilitate the UK’s capabilities to protect public health during high impact threats and hazards by: a) Advancing knowledge of the biology and epidemiology of public health effects of a number of less well- researched, specific, high impact threats and hazards and their potential for mitigation. b) Developing robust inferential statistical techniques to determine the “hazard footprint” (the potentially exposed population in time and space), based on the epidemiological data from very early cases, for a range of high impact threat and hazard scenarios. c) Undertaking operational research to better understand the effectiveness of proposed public health mitigation strategies, while taking into account their feasibility and operational constraints. d) Developing and testing analytical tools to support Government, health protection professionals and the public in taking appropriate actions to minimise morbidity and mortality following deliberate, accidental and natural disasters. Short term objectives: 1) Work with the other theme leads, especially in Enhancing Syndromic Surveillance, and where appropriate other HPRUs, to identify and prioritise a range of potential high impact hazard and threat scenarios that require research to improve PHE’s capabilities to provide advice and other assistance for emergency preparedness and response (EPR), based on the prioritisation of scenarios arising from our Stakeholder Group, including relevant policy groups across Government. 2) Develop enhanced methods for collecting and analysing quantitative information after real world emergency events that would facilitate improved public health responses. 3) Undertake systematic literature reviews on selected agents/scenarios focussing on those that present particular public health challenges that have not had substantive investigation from an EPR and health protection perspective. 4) Extend, operationalize and test tools that PHE has already partly developed and that have been shown in principle to be able to infer the hazard footprint for people requiring rapid early medical intervention. Medium term objectives: 1) Undertake systematic reviews on the effectiveness of public health responses to a range of natural and manmade emergencies in reducing morbidity, mortality and social impacts. 2) Undertake in depth operational research around the feasibility and efficacy of mass distribution of pharmaceuticals and other potential countermeasure strategies.Test the strengths and limitations of tools to infer the “hazard footprint” caused by an airborne released pathogen for a range of meteorological and geographical scenarios, especially outside London. 4) Further develop the “hazard footprint” tools to accommodate person-to-person transmissible agents, the concepts of contact tracing and the isolation and quarantine of cases, and routes of human exposure other than airborne dispersion of pathogens, such as by food and water. Longer term objectives: 1) Initiate changes in practice as a result of research undertaken in the first years of the HPRU and design prospective tools to assess the value of any changes.


Research activity codes: 3.5 RESOURCES AND INFRASTRUCTURE (PREVENTION)
Health categories: GENERIC HEALTH RELEVANCE