Abstract

The Pandemic Preparedness Toolkit (PPT) is a five-year project (2023–2028), funded by Wellcome. The overarching aim is to co-create an accessible, sustainable, online Toolkit that will build capacity for health surveillance and statistical leadership in National Statistical Offices (NSOs) in the event of future pandemics. The UK Office for National Statistics (ONS) is the lead organisation on the PPT project and is partnering with the NSOs of Argentina, Malawi, and Nepal to develop the Toolkit.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, ONS mortality statistics and the UK wide COVID-19 Infection Survey (CIS) provided a vital source of regular and timely data. The ONS worked collaboratively across government in urgent circumstances to present clear information, supporting public understanding and policy making.

After undertaking a series of international focus groups in late 2023 with NSOs across the globe, it was identified that the ONS’s role in the UK’s COVID-19 response was atypical. Elsewhere, NSOs were often not directly involved in pandemic surveillance and were therefore underutilised during the COVID-19 pandemic. The PPT project aims to unlock this potential and demonstrate where NSOs can add value to pandemic surveillance systems. This could be through providing statistical support to those undertaking pandemic surveillance, contributing to pandemic surveillance through holistic analysis such as on inequalities, risk factors and impacts, or through conducting pandemic surveillance, such as CIS.

The Toolkit is being constructed from the ONS’s own pandemic surveillance and statistical leadership expertise, as well as the different experiences of the partners. This construction process places an emphasis on equitable partnerships, ensuring that all partners are learning from each other in order to co-develop the Toolkit together. The breadth of partners on the project also means that the Toolkit will be relevant to as many different contexts and current capacities as possible.

The Toolkit is structured around a maturity model framework that operates through five core themes and two cross-cutting themes, 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

This paper at ISI 2025 will mark the halfway point of the project. We will therefore present the maturity model framework and the Toolkit outline, as well as showcase initial tools and training modules that have been developed. Additionally, learnings from a project that brings together NSOs from four continents (Africa, Asia, Europe, and South America) will be shared.

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 is the first of its kind to provide a resource specifically designed for NSOs to advise on, and conduct, trusted pandemic surveillance and work effectively with public health offices to implement evidence-based policies.