First-ever CDC modeling helped SC get ‘real time’ picture of historic measles outbreak

But there is an effort now at the CDC to make this kind of modeling and forecasting part of its public health response, she said.

Cases and health response

“This is really the first time that CDC was able to do this type of analysis … to really test how it was doing in real time during an active measles” outbreak, Miller said.

“So that was super exciting for us.” The CDC was already supporting South Carolina in its response to the measles outbreak and the data scientists saw that the information the state was collecting could be fed into the Nowcasting model.

Specifically, the state was already noting the date when the tell-tale measles rash appeared and when that case was subsequently reported to public health.

That was generally a gap of 2-3 days, and the state’s consistent collection of that data allowed the model to provide a better picture of what was actually happening on the ground.

The model can also provide a better sense of whether the infection rate is increasing, decreasing or stable.

The CDC was also involved from the S.C. Department of Public Health side.

Outbreak background

Dr. Marco Tori is a career epidemiology field officer with the CDC who is embedded with the South Carolina agency where he serves as a medical consultant and assistant state epidemiologist.