Pandemonium by Quantum Risk Analytics, Inc.

Pandemonium employs unique modelling, non-traditional data sources, and probabilistic computing techniques to better assess individual risk for contracting disease. Our programing structure will be open source to foster cooperation between public health officials and academic and commercial researchers. The public may access individual risk assessments for free.

• RICHARD D. HAMLIN - CEO/Lead Developer

The current pandemic revealed three challenges to effective public health responses and individual risk mitigation during a global pandemic: data sharing between governmental, academic, and industrial researchers, dissemination of accurate information from researchers and public health officials to the general public, and education of the public to make effective risk mitigation choices for themselves and their families.

There have been more than 141 million documented COVID-19 cases worldwide, accompanied by over 3 million deaths. 1 in 11 people in the United States have knowingly had COVID-19 with >500,000 associated deaths. However, Americans are unsure of their risks of acquiring COVID-19 and its consequences, with large numbers stating that COVID-19 is not a significant threat to public health. Studies conclude that education campaigns improve public health outcomes (e.g., the proper use of bed nets reducing the incidence of malaria). Also, agency and voluntariness affect public adoption of risk mitigation strategies in COVID-19.    

Our solution will enhance the public’s awareness of their infection risks, promote associated feelings of self-direction and adoption of risk reducing-behaviors, and ultimately improve health outcomes in diverse countries. These benefits will extend to public health authorities, researchers, and responses to not just the current, but also future pandemics.

Pandemonium serves three stakeholder groups. Individuals and families can access a risk assessment tool that incorporates traditional and novel data for their location and demographics, and accounts for local, regional, and national travel. Public health officials can use Pandemonium to track local metrics and compare them to other regional civic units. Researchers can freely use the advanced code contained in Pandemonium to augment their studies, and potentially add to the Pandemonium core code.

One development team is working with specific test groups to assure the ease of use and completeness of Pandemonium’s web experience. Another team is reaching out to local government health agencies to assure Pandemonium aligns with appropriate standards and local requirements. Finally, our coding team is reaching out to public health and infectious disease researchers to better align the Pandemonium code interface with their needs.

Pandemonium’s solution combines a free, publicly available risk assessment tool with a sophisticated open source data analysis and prediction software suite.  As a free and accessible service, it will provide technical expertise to the general public and health entities. Our framework  and research will be available to interested researchers, developers, and members of the public to enhance the response to the current and future pandemics. Given that our framework will be open-source, the process will be completely transparent and open to constructive criticism from the public, thus allowing for improvements on how to better assist specific groups.      

To analyze the impact of our project, we apply the Impact Value Chain Logic Model, which defines the interrelated components that are required for the success of our objective (inputs, processes, outputs, outcomes, and impacts). The inputs include financial resources, technical expertise, human resources and hardware & software. We have operational, supporting and management processes. The outputs obtained are a platform employs non-traditional data sources, and probabilistic computing techniques to better assess individual risk-based decisions. Our desired outcomes is a high percentage of use our app, especially by vulnerable and at-risk people, and a concomitant  decrease in the mortality rate due to an epidemic or pandemic and  in which we will use four key indicators. Our Impact plan includes social and health challenges that are addressed by the project. We haven't executed it, and we haven't obtained significant results from a pilot test yet; we will implement it when we have an increase in financial resources (to start-up). There is no third party research, because our product is totally new. This article (https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03637-y) showcases similar technologies,apps that predict risk. Their value is reflected through their adoption and current use in the United States and ten european countries. 

Technologically, we will scale up using cloud computing.  We already have our prototype running in a Docker container, and we will utilize Kubernetes to launch containers in concert. We are starting to reach out to cloud providers, as we approach that stage.

We will be replacing our current SQLite3 database with PostGIS (PostgreSQL with GIS) before we launch into the cloud.

Another issue is how to computationally deal with more data as we scale up. A potential approach is SPAHM (See supplementary). This provides a way to extract larger inferences across siloed data sets

In the first year, we aim to grow the organization by raising more funds to increase reach. We have limited resources, but we will start to pilot test and monitor indicators at the local, state, and national level.

In the next three years, we hope to expand worldwide and invest in innovations to deliver outsized impact and drive large-scale change. We will establish partnerships and collaborate with the government to help scale the impact. We also will leverage public health communications to drive awareness.  As we grow, our ability to crowdsource will, too, and so the growth should be exponential once we hit a critical threshold.

We have the following key indicators that will be measured as follows: 

1. Coverage ratio of people at-risk: vulnerable people accessing the app/total vulnerable population, measures the degree to which the project reaches the population most in need.

2. Effect of the population using our app in a given county: usage of our app will be measured by the number using the app divided by the total population of the state. 

3. Age- and sex-specific mortality rate caused by a pathogen.

4. Performance evaluation of app: So far we have not had significant results; but we are working toward them.

Project duration: 8  months 

• Activities: Platform design (periodical database acquisition and real time updating, updating knowledge through scientific articles), periodic training of assigned personnel, platform upgrade.

• Measurement of indicators within the established time frame.

• Time: It will depend on the amount of work and human resources.

The monitoring will be monthly. Our coordinator will evaluate the quality of the results. The evaluation of the impact will be a mixed methods research design.

Pandemonium’s prototype is currently for the United States, and it is intended to be deployed worldwide within the next three years. We will expand to Mexico first. We will then prioritize the continent with the most urgent need for our model, which we expect to be Europe.

Our impact is limited by finances, including computational costs. Our expansion depends on the availability of uniform, functioning data for diverse regions. Privacy concerns place an additional limitation on what data we can access. However, as a charitable non-profit corporation, we expect to have access to proprietary data, and we will leverage the MIT network and MIT Solve community to access high quality information. 

We will need to build rapport with public health authorities. In the initial stages of our expansion, we expect organizations to be hesitant about sharing data with us. It is crucial for us to demonstrate the effectiveness of the tool in order to broaden its implementation and to access detailed data. Even with trust with the public health establishment, we may face censorship from regional media or governments. 

Quantum Risk Analytics, Inc. is a nonprofit organization founded by MIT alumni to mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic. This organization brings together talented, motivated people from different countries and with diverse backgrounds.