Using EpiCore to Enable Rapid Verification of Potential Health Threats: Illustrated Use Cases and Summary Statistics

Abstract

Background The proliferation of digital disease-detection systems has led to an increase in earlier warning signals, which subsequently have resulted in swifter responses to emerging threats. Such highly sensitive systems can also produce weak signals needing additional information for action. The delays in the response to a genuine health threat are often due to the time it takes to verify a health event. It was the delay in outbreak verification that was the main impetus for creating EpiCore. Objective This paper describes the potential of crowdsourcing information through EpiCore, a network of voluntary human, animal, and environmental health professionals supporting the verification of early warning signals of potential outbreaks and informing risk assessments by monitoring ongoing threats. Methods This paper uses summary statistics to assess whether EpiCore is meeting its goal to accelerate the time to verification of identified potential health events for epidemic and pandemic intelligence purposes from around the world. Data from the EpiCore platform from January 2018 to December 2022 were analyzed to capture request for information response rates and verification rates. Illustrated use cases are provided to describe how EpiCore members provide information to facilitate the verification of early warning signals of potential outbreaks and for the monitoring and risk assessment of ongoing threats through EpiCore and its utilities. Results Since its launch in 2016, EpiCore network membership grew to over 3300 individuals during the first 2 years, consisting of professionals in human, animal, and environmental health, spanning 161 countries. The overall EpiCore response rate to requests for information increased by year between 2018 and 2022 from 65.4% to 68.8% with an initial response typically received within 24 hours (in 2022, 94% of responded requests received a first contribution within 24 h). Five illustrated use cases highlight the various uses of EpiCore. Conclusions As the global demand for data to facilitate disease prevention and control continues to grow, it will be crucial for traditional and nontraditional methods of disease surveillance to work together to ensure health threats are captured earlier. EpiCore is an innovative approach that can support health authorities in decision-making when used complementarily with official early detection and verification systems. EpiCore can shorten the time to verification by confirming early detection signals, informing risk-assessment activities, and monitoring ongoing events.