The proposal of Dr LIU Xiaofan, Assistant Professor of CityU’s Department of Media and Communication, is among the 10 projects and the only one from an Asian institution awarded a data science research grant from the International COVID-19 Data Alliance (ICODA) and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation‘s Grand Challenges initiative. 

Dr Liu’s proposed project, entitled “Characterizing COVID-19 transmission chains for precision mitigation, using epidemiological survey data”, intends to improve control measures for COVID-19 by applying statistical methods to existing datasets containing over 40,000 COVID-19 cases from five Asian countries to reconstruct transmission chains between individuals in households and communities. His global research team comprises international scholars from Hong Kong, Mainland China and the UK.

Dr Liu and other awardees, whose proposals stood out from over 400 applications from 69 countries, will use data science approaches to address to a range of critical questions from exploring the effectiveness of vaccination programmes, understanding disease transmission, the impact on different vulnerable patient groups and populations, and the impact on health services delivery. Outputs from their research are expected within 12 months.

ICODA is a globally coordinated data-led research response to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic, convened by Health Data Research UK, the UK’s national institute for health data science. In addition to funding to support their research, award holders will have access to resources, technology and processes from the ICODA team and its partners, as well as opportunities for collaboration across a global research community.