Purpose
CFA's Learning Library is a collection of courses—all developed with support from CFA—related to infectious disease modeling and forecasting. The courses are designed to enhance familiarity with infectious disease modeling and forecasting and their application to public health decision-making. Whether you're a public health decision-maker, epidemiologist, data scientist, communicator, or other public health professional, these courses will provide valuable insights and practical applications. This Learning Library will continue to grow as more courses are developed with CFA support.
Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO)
In the spring of 2024, ASTHO held a five-part learning series to provide state and territorial public health staff with a basic understanding of disease forecasting.
Course title: Disease Forecasting Basics: Part 1 and Part 2
Target audience: Epidemiologists, Data scientists, Public health professionals
Time commitment: 2 hours
Knowledge level: Beginner
Platform: YouTube
Content: These introductory sessions provide public health staff with an overview of disease models and forecasts, including a brief history of their use.
Course title: Workforce Challenges and Training Opportunities (Part 3)
Target audience: Health department leadership, Public health professionals, Policymakers
Time commitment: 1 hour
Knowledge level: Beginner
Platform: YouTube
Content: Explores workforce challenges and opportunities around modeling and forecasting, including innovative ideas for jurisdictions to address staffing issues.
Course title: Communicating About Disease Forecasting (Part 4)
Target audience: Health communicators, Epidemiologists, Public health professionals
Time commitment: 1 hour
Knowledge level: Intermediate
Platform: YouTube
Content: Highlights the need for clear, transparent, and timely communication of modeling results, including exploring the challenges of communicating uncertainty with diverse audiences.
Course title: Communicating with Policymakers (Part 5)
Target Audience: Epidemiologists, Data scientists, Public health professionals
Time commitment: 1 hour
Knowledge level: Intermediate
Platform: YouTube
Content: Provides an overview of key considerations when briefing policymakers and some strategies to use when interacting with legislators.
Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE)
Course title: Infectious Disease Modeling 101 for Public Health
Target audience: Epidemiologists, Public health professionals
Time commitment: 1 hour
Platform: CSTE Learn
Knowledge level: Beginner
Content: Developed with subject matter experts from CDC’s Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion (DHQP), this session describes the fundamentals of infectious disease models, and ways in which models can be used for public health.
Johns Hopkins University
Course title: Infectious Disease Transmission Models for Decision-Makers
Target audience: Epidemiologists, Policymakers, Public health professionals
Time commitment: 4 hours
Knowledge level: Beginner
Platform: Coursera
Content: Covers the basic principles of infectious disease models and how modeling and forecasting can be used for practical public health decision-making.
Course title: Infectious Disease Modeling in Practice
Target audience: Epidemiologists, Data scientists, Public health professionals
Time commitment: 3 hours
Knowledge level: Intermediate
Platform: Coursera
Content: Delves a little deeper into the models themselves, describing the differences between model types and key elements of their structure—with real world, applied examples.