Mark Lurie, Associate Professor of Epidemiology and Director of the International Health Institute at Brown University, has received funding from the National Science Foundation to develop a complex simulation model for evaluating the public health ramifications of future pandemics before they occur.

In addition to studying the biological components of pathogens, the project, titled “The Center for Mobility Analysis for Pandemic Prevention Strategies,” or MAPPS, seeks to understand and predict human behaviors in the U.S. and around the globe that determine transmission potential. Dr. Lurie explains, “Understanding how and to what extent human interactions happen across various groups, as well as the networks that bring people from one part of the world to another via micro-, meso-, and macro-level processes, is absolutely essential to predicting disease transmission.”

As noted in a Providence Journal feature on the project, Professor Lurie and his team imagine the potential of MAPPS to accurately predict how future deadly disease outbreaks might progress, thereby providing unprecedented opportunities for public-health officials, medical professionals, and policymakers to curb these events before they become pandemics.