SCC-IRG JST: Multimodal Data Analytics and Integration for Effective COVID-19, Pandemics and Compound Disaster Response and Management

COVID-19疫情在美国和全球造成大量确诊病例和死亡。国家经历了对公民生活、健康和经济的严重影响。由于其高传染性，采取了隔离和封锁等政策，以减缓病毒的快速传播。一些主要挑战是确定脆弱社区以提供即时帮助，并确定有效减缓传播的政策，同时将对民生，心理健康和经济的不利影响降至最低。该项目旨在开发工具，以确定处于危机中的社区，确定其问题和需求，并根据流动性和社交媒体数据预测流行病传播趋势和对不同社区的影响。开发的工具和技术对于有效的灾害管理和流行病恢复至关重要。此外，大流行病和其他自然灾害的同时发生更具挑战性，因为大规模疏散和避难过程可能导致传染性大流行病病例激增。该项目将基于我们以前开发的自然灾害管理工具，开发新技术，在大流行情况下帮助应急管理人员。拟议的研究提供了潜在的解决方案，以解决COVID-19、未来大流行和复合灾害的关键灾害信息管理挑战，同时利用团队以前的工作。此外，拟议的技术将有助于更好地了解灾害情况，以协助包括少数民族和低收入人口在内的广泛社区的准备和恢复。该项目还将有可能产生社会和经济影响，提供关于流行病和复合灾害的最准确信息，以防止意外损失。所开发的解决方案以后可扩展到其他灾害和信息管理。该项目促进了佛罗里达国际大学（FIU）和东京大学以及公共和私营部门（包括迈阿密-戴德市、佛罗里达和日本东京）机构之间的合作，以开发先进技术，有效应对和管理COVID-19、未来大流行和复合灾害。这项工作的更广泛影响与通过开发具有真实数据的创新灾害信息交换和分析工具来建设智能和互联社区的国家目标相一致。此外，FIU是全国领先的少数民族服务研究型大学之一，在授予西班牙裔学生本科和研究生学位方面排名第一。该研究成果将通过研讨会、出版物、报告会等形式进行传播。该研究项目是由日本科学技术厅和美国国家科学基金会共同合作的项目。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in huge amounts of confirmed cases and deaths both in the United States and globally. The nation experienced grave repercussions to citizens’ lives, health, and the economy. Due to its high contagiousness, policies such as quarantine and lockdowns were put in place to slow the virus’ rapid spread. Some major challenges are identifying vulnerable communities to provide immediate help and determining policies that are effective in slowing down the spread with minimal adverse effects on people’s livelihood, mental health, and the economy. This project aims to develop tools that can locate communities in crisis, identify their problems and demands, and predict pandemic transmission trends and impacts in diverse communities based on mobility and social media data. The developed tools and technologies are critical for effective disaster management and pandemic recovery. Furthermore, pandemic and other natural disasters’ co-occurrence is even more challenging given that mass evacuation and sheltering processes may cause a spike in cases of transmissible pandemic diseases. This project will develop new technologies that can aid emergency managers under a pandemic scenario based upon our previously developed tools for natural disaster management.The proposed research provides potential solutions to solve crucial disaster information management challenges for COVID-19, future pandemics, and compound disasters while leveraging the team's previous work. Furthermore, the proposed techniques will help better understand the disaster situation to assist the preparation and recovery for a broad range of communities, including minority and low-income populations. This project will also have the potential to have societal and economic impacts by providing the most accurate information on pandemics and compound disasters to prevent unexpected losses. The developed solutions could be later expanded for other disaster and information management. This project fosters collaboration between the Florida International University (FIU) and the University of Tokyo, as well as institutions across the public and private sectors (including the cities of Miami-Dade, Florida, and Tokyo, Japan), to develop advanced techniques for effective emergency response and management for COVID-19, future pandemic, and compound disasters. This work’s broader impact is aligned with the national goal of building smart and connected communities by developing innovative disaster information exchange and analysis tools with real-life data. In addition, FIU is one of the nation’s leading minority-serving research universities and ranks first in awarding undergraduate and graduate degrees to Hispanic students. The research findings of this project will be disseminated through workshops, publications, and presentations.This project is a joint collaboration between the National Science Foundation and the Japan Science and Technology Agency.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.