Modeling health emergency response strategies and capacities in the EU

The main goal of this research project is to apply a system dynamics (SD) approach to the analysis of crisis management in the early phase of a public health emergency of international concern across different crisis management levels in Belgium and the EU. Using SD techniques, we aim to design an operational tool aimed at facilitating decision-making by providing a clear overview of available data and simulating impacts of countermeasures in various scenarios. Given the current concerns around the pandemic potential of avian influenza viruses, we plan to initially focus on modeling the early response to a first outbreak of human-to-human transmission of H5N1 in Belgium. In line with the Durable project mandate, we nevertheless intend to keep the opportunity of shifting our attention to any other PHEIC scenario that would appear to be more likely to occur in Europe in the coming years.