institute for pandemics takes aim at the next health crisis
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uoft's institute for pandemics will build skilled workforce to manage future pandemics. stock/getty
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pandemics require a lot of thought leadership. it’s why the university of toronto’s dalla lana school of public health has launched a pandemic institute that will share its learnings with public health authorities on how to tackle emerging health threats — taking into account economic and social implications while focusing on equity.
the institute’s aim is to collaborate and partner with health organizations and governments on effective, evidence-based approaches to identifying and mitigating global diseases, while avoiding the red tape that typically handicaps governmental approaches.
“it gives us a home,” says dr. david fisman, a professor in the epidemiology division of the dalla lana school of public health. “there are just so many things people want to know, and what they want you to model. it’s going to help optimize decision-making.”
one of the institute’s focal points will be to model infectious disease in an effort to be able to respond collaboratively to a crisis. this will include ramping up communication between academics, governments and political leaders to build a cohesive pandemic response. another focus will be synthesizing high-level data on health outcomes to provide information that is easy to understand and put into action.
fisman says that part of the institute’s role will be to determine how to help mitigate future outbreaks. “i don’t know if we [can prevent this from happening] in the future, but we can reduce the likelihood that things go wrong,” he says.
throughout the pandemic, he says, there has been a constant interplay between saving people’s lives through lockdowns and reopening the economy. part of the process will also be to determine how to build an economic model that will address the inequities the pandemic has created.
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the institute also wants to train a new generation of health professionals who can tackle the multifaceted nature of pandemics with expertise in ecology, epidemiology, climate change, urbanization and economics. fisman says that the current pandemic has highlighted how few experts canada has in the field of emerging diseases, adding that the institute’s course offerings will create a skilled workforce that has a solid knowledge of the dynamics of pandemics.
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