Spotlight On: Abt’s Digital Solutions in Public Health

Public health is, and has always been, grounded in evidence. Abt pairs our content and subject matter expertise with digital and technology solutions to ensure that clients have the right data, resulting insights, and recommendations to inform their decision making. Our technical capabilities span across critical public health areas, including infectious disease prevention and control, emergency preparedness, chronic disease prevention, health promotion, telehealth, maternal and child health, and behavioral health. 

Our project teams bring a deep bench of nationally recognized subject matter experts and researchers to develop innovative and efficient solutions for our clients.

Methods

We capture high-quality data from a range of sources and use rigorous methods to analyze, communicate, and contextualize data. Data capture involves collecting the right data in a usable format in a timely manner. We also support our clients in modernizing their data systems to unlock the full potential of the data they collect every day. Our statisticians, economists, and computer and data scientists work with subject matter experts to craft solutions and measure impact using an equity lens. We devise sampling designs for surveys and observational studies and design clinical trials—all with an eye toward accuracy, equity, and agility.

At Abt, we have used data and emerging technology to tackle the world’s toughest challenges since our founding. And it remains the heart of what we do today.

Relevant Experience  
 

CDC / CFA Demographic Social Comorbidities Table (DSCT)    
Client: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics (CFA)

The COVID-19 pandemic made it abundantly clear that the nation’s ability to identify and respond to outbreaks fundamentally relies on access to high-quality and timely data for disease surveillance. CDC’s Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics (CFA) contracted Abt and its partner, HealthVerity, to provide data that federal, state, territory, and local governments and other organizations can use to target interventions and countermeasures in the event of a public health emergency. New data products created under this initiative source, integrate, analyze, and package disparate datasets for users. Data scientists and epidemiologists combine large data sets from a variety of industry and government sources with massive computing power, automation, analytics, and artificial intelligence. Medical claims data, social media data, data from service providers (healthcare providers, schools, universities, nursing homes, and correctional facilities), and market research are used to inform plans and responses to public health emergencies in an equitable manner that is focused on local communities.

Modernizing NIH’s Dietary Supplement Label Database (DSLD)  
Client: National Institute of Health’s Office of Dietary Supplements

The majority of American adults take dietary supplements, and the market for these products continues to grow. Congress called on the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Office of Dietary Supplements to create the Dietary Supplement Label Database (DSLD) for tracking and capturing the growing number of supplements to help understand this constantly changing landscape as well as product ingredients and claims.

On behalf of NIH’s Office of Dietary Supplements, Abt completed a user-centered redesign and IT modernization of the DSLD to improve user experience and facilitate broader use and sharing of label information. The upgrades include:

• Faster database searches. The streamlined search interface helps users find the labels they need intuitively and efficiently, and the modernized search engine returns complex search results rapidly.
• Better access to data. Custom searches can be downloaded in three different formats, and application developers and data scientists can directly access the latest data via a public application programming interface (API).
• An updated directory of linked dietary supplement resources from federal agencies and other sources.
• A modernized cloud-based platform that is scalable to NIH’s future needs. It takes advantage of many of the federal government's digital service and platform investments, such as cloud.gov, api.data.gov, and the U.S. Web Design System.

The number of DSLD users nearly doubled after the launch of the updated website. With Abt’s support, NIH’s Office of Dietary Supplements continuously tracks use of the DSLD to identify and roll out new features and site enhancements.

Abt Played a Key COVID-19 Role Providing CDC Needed Data   
Client: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC)

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Abt researchers tracked SARS-CoV-2 transmission for CDC using, among other techniques, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing at a time when little was known about COVID-19. We also used a network of prestigious clinical organizations established in 2013 to monitor novel flu viruses and vaccine effectiveness. Our rigorous data gathering produced a score of oft-cited journal articles that had a huge impact on national policy and science. Through our regular testing of patients, we were able to track asymptomatic and mild cases that did not require a doctor’s visit and were unlikely entered into health records. Our data collection provided the missing pieces to many studies during that time. Learn more about Abt’s digital data collection capes of the six CDC COVID-19 studies.

Diabetes Health Card Increases Risk Awareness 
Client: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC)

Changing behavior requires reaching people at the right time: when they are open to making a change. One indication of that willingness in the diabetes context is if they are searching for diabetes-related information online. But how do we increase awareness of risk and prompt searchers to alter their lifestyles?

Abt and its partners work with CDC to design, implement and evaluate behaviorally-optimized Prediabetes and Diabetes Health Cards, which appear when users search for keywords on a major search engine. The cards provide users with a behavioral nudge to go to CDC landing pages, take an online risk test, and seek information about the National Diabetes Prevention Program Abt’s evaluation of the redesigned cards’ effectiveness found an eight-fold increase in the number of individuals who took the online risk test and were subsequently connected with CDC resources on CDC’s website.