ECDC tool for the prioritisation of infectious disease threats: Handbook and manual
This handbook describes an ECDC-developed Microsoft Excel tool for the prioritisation of infectious disease threats. The tool is based on multi-criteria decision analysis. It ranks infectious disease threats in a transparent, comparable and methodologically reproducible manner. The tool enables the relative ranking of different infectious disease threats. It is intended as a supplement to other methods that also support decision-making in preparedness planning.
The tool and this handbook are best used in conjunction with ECDC’s report on Best practices in ranking emerging infectious disease threats, which illustrates several important considerations for the risk-ranking process. This handbook also describes an ECDC risk-ranking exercise conducted to guide public health emergency preparedness planning from an EU perspective. The Background chapter below provides basic information on risk ranking in the context of public health, paying particular attention to multi-criteria decision analysis. Chapter 1 of this handbook describes the process of a ranking exercise for disease threats, focussing on best practice suggestions for each step, while Chapter 2 serves as a practical manual for the ECDC risk-ranking tool.
There are many important aspects to running a successful risk ranking exercise. As will be detailed in Sections 2 and 3, executing the key tasks listed in Figure 1 is essential for the success of any risk-ranking activity.