Pandemic Preparedness Toolkit project: learning from COVID-19 and preparing for the next pandemic

About the project

Spanning four continents (Africa, Asia, Europe and South America), the Pandemic Preparedness Toolkit (PPT) is a new collaborative project between the UK Office for National Statistics (ONS) and the NSOs of Argentina, Malawi and Nepal.

The aim is to co-create an accessible, sustainable, online toolkit that will build capacity in national statistical offices (NSOs) for health surveillance in the event of future pandemics.

The ONS will build on their own pandemic surveillance and statistical leadership expertise, as well as the breadth of different experiences of the Pathfinder Partners, to learn from each other and co-develop the toolkit. Seven main themes will be included in the toolkit, having been identified as essential for an effective pandemic response:

surveys and data collection
data analysis
outputs and reporting
stakeholder engagement and leadership
legislation and processes
cross-cutting themes: training, using technology

Once live, the PPT will be a collection of online modules providing practical guidance, statistical methods, knowledge products, case studies and training materials. This project will be the first of its kind to provide a resource specifically designed for NSOs to advise on, and conduct, trusted infectious disease surveillance and work effectively with public health offices to implement evidence-based policies.

Further collaborations are planned with other NSOs, academics and other non-governmental organisations through the PPT Global Network, to ensure that the toolkit reaches its full potential.

The final toolkit will be freely accessible, usable and sustainable, meaning all interested parties will be able to benefit from its resources.

Project timeline

Year 1: 2022 to 2023

Partnerships in place

Year 2: 2024 to 2025

Toolkit outline

Year 3: 2025 to 2026

Toolkit live – private

Year 4: 2026 to 2027

Toolkit live – public

Year 5: 2027 to 2028

Sustainable solution in place

Following the project start in April 2023, Year 1 has focused on capturing “lessons learnt” from the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic response, forming Pathfinder Partnerships and engaging wider stakeholders to inform the toolkit design. During Years 2 to 4, the toolkit will be developed, tested and iterated through a collaborative approach. The final year will focus on promotion, training and securing a sustainable long-term solution for the toolkit by project completion in March 2028.

About our partners

Our three Pathfinder Partner NSOs are:

Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Censos (INDEC), Argentina
Nepal National Statistics Office
National Statistical Office of Malawi

Each Pathfinder Partner NSO will be working closely with an in-country Delivery Partner on the project from September 2024.

About our funder

This project is led by the ONS and funded by Wellcome (Grant number 226596/Z/22/Z).

Contacts

To contact the Pandemic Preparedness Toolkit project, please email: PPT@ons.gov.uk

For our latest updates, you can follow the ONS on X (Twitter): @ONSfocus

Tell us whether you accept cookies