Recruiting public health officials, infectious disease clinicians, modelers, epidemiologists, and school coordinators to better understand how they make decisions in real-life scenarios about influenza
What will happen with flu in the next couple of months? How can I consider both computational models and my trusted colleagues? How can my colleagues deliver fast and accurate information that our surveillance system doesn’t collect? If these phrases have crossed your mind then you may be able to help shape an upcoming digital platform—DECISIONCAST—tailored towards public health decision makers that aims to collect and combine your colleagues’ thoughts and opinions in the form of forecasts from questions that you pose.
We would like to invite public health officials, infectious disease clinicians, modelers, epidemiologists, and school coordinators with experience addressing respiratory illnesses to participate in a study that aims to understand how you think through real influenza scenarios. Your contributions will inform the goals of DECISIONCAST to improve situational awareness for addressing influenza in the United States.
If interested, you will participate in a single one-hour Think-Aloud experiment, asking you to speak aloud your decision making process as you work through preparing or mitigating an influenza scenario. Data collection is expected to be carried out Sept. 20–Nov. 25, 2026. All information you share will be confidential. Participants will receive $50 compensation for data collection.
This research is being led by Dr. Thomas McAndrew, Dr. Rochelle Frounfelker at Lehigh University and Dr. Shaun Truelove at Johns Hopkins University (NSF 2420933).
If interested, please email Ms. Nina Berkowitz at nib226@lehigh.edu or Thomas McAndrew at mcandrew@lehigh.edu with questions and to request informed consent documents for your review. This study is completely voluntary. If you would like more information or have any questions, please let us know.
Thank you for considering sharing your experience, time, and knowledge with us.
