Commissioned by the Novo Nordisk Foundation, this study aims to provide an overview of the pathogen surveillance space internationally and the stakeholders involved, as well as to understand the strengths and weaknesses of different current initiatives, the challenges of pathogen surveillance and how they have been addressed, and how data has been used to inform public health decision making.

Data collection and sharing for pathogen surveillance

Making sense of a fragmented global system

Sarah Parkinson, Jessica Dawney, Avery Adams, Ben Senator

ResearchPublished Nov 15, 2023

RAND Europe was commissioned by the Novo Nordisk Foundation to conduct a study on pathogen surveillance and current initiatives. The study aims to provide an overview of the pathogen surveillance space internationally and the stakeholders involved, as well as to understand the strengths and weaknesses of different initiatives, the challenges of pathogen surveillance and how they have been addressed, and how data has been used to inform public health decision making. To do this, a scoping review of pathogen surveillance initiatives was conducted, and ten case studies were developed and selected for further review following a workshop attended by the Novo Nordisk Foundation and RAND Europe study team. Interviews were conducted with individuals involved in pathogen surveillance initiatives to gather additional information to develop case studies, and expert interviews addressed gaps in the pathogen surveillance space and models that would be helpful in filling these gaps.

Key Findings

  • The pathogen surveillance space is highly fragmented.
  • Capacity constraints and logistical challenges, particularly in low-resource settings, limit the availability of data for surveillance.
  • The ability to conduct integrated and real-time surveillance is critical to public health decision making.

Recommendations

  • There is a need to build distributed and sustainable capacity.
  • More harmonised approaches and methods are needed to improve integration between data streams and reduce siloed data.
  • There is potential to use artificial intelligence (AI) and data science techniques.
  • Common approaches for pathogen surveillance would need to balance being simple enough to implement and having the sophistication to capture granular, complex information.

Topics

Document Details

Citation

RAND Style Manual

Parkinson, Sarah, Jessica Dawney, Avery Adams, and Ben Senator, Data collection and sharing for pathogen surveillance: Making sense of a fragmented global system, RAND Corporation, RR-A2788-1, 2023. As of May 1, 2025: https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA2788-1.html

Chicago Manual of Style

Parkinson, Sarah, Jessica Dawney, Avery Adams, and Ben Senator, Data collection and sharing for pathogen surveillance: Making sense of a fragmented global system. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2023. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA2788-1.html.
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The research described in this report was commissioned by the Novo Nordisk Foundation and conducted by RAND Europe.

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