INFORM epidemic risk index: support collaborative risk assessment for health threats

JRC is developing a unified global system for public health threat detection and risk assessment (EIOS), and it is the technical and scientific leader of the Index for Risk Management (INFORM), a composite indicator that identifies countries at risk of humanitarian crisis and disaster that would overwhelm national response capacity. Both projects are in collaboration with the UN World Health Organisation (WHO). WHO is working on the Epidemic Risk Index (ERI), a tool that supports strategic decision making and prioritization of capacity building activities for national epidemic prevention, preparedness, and response. The Epidemic Risk Index is calculated using the methodology of INFORM model. Ultimately, the double objectives are to (1) the need for EIOS to include ancillary information from ERI, and (2) for INFORM to incorporate health components to improve the overall index. This report describes the ongoing collaboration with WHO on the developing of the Epidemic Risk Index and the results achieved.