Our Story
The California Collaborative for Public Health Research (CPR3) serves as a blueprint for how state-wide academic and community public health partnerships can bridge research to policy to inform public health interventions, investments and decision-making.
The COVID-19 pandemic revealed a need to strengthen public health systems and coordinate across sectors to protect lives and livelihoods of all Californians, especially those most vulnerable and disproportionately impacted. As new evidence and tools about the disease emerged, the lack of an efficient channel between academic researchers and public health decision-makers became clear. In response, two University of California (UC) initiatives were launched in partnership with the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) to bridge the gap between research and policy.
We appreciated the opportunity to participate in an effort that harnesses the power of research to support policymakers preparing for future crises.
Till von Wachter
CPR3 awardee, UC Los Angeles
The UC-CDPH Modeling and Advanced Analytics Consortium was launched in 2021 to provide real-time evidence generation to inform CDPH COVID-19 decision-making. UC faculty across an array of diverse disciplines work with CDPH disease modelers and public health experts to conduct innovative epidemiological nowcasting, forecasting, scenario building and advanced analytics. Efforts have focused on high-priority topics such as COVID-19 variants, vaccination, health equity, economic impacts, and other pathogens such as influenza and RSV.
The Collaborative for Pandemic Recovery and Readiness Research (CPR3) was launched in 2022 to study the long-term impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and response efforts, centered around equity and integrating community perspectives. CPR3 funds policy-relevant research and facilitates community engagement and evidence translation through strategic events that connect researchers, California policy makers, and community members.
Beyond COVID-19
Our work has expanded into additional public health research areas and collaborations beyond COVID-19. To reflect this, we merged our two initiatives - the UC-CDPH Modeling and Advanced Analytics Consortium and the California Collaborative for Pandemic Recovery and Readiness Research – under one initiative, the California Collaborative for Public Health Research (CPR3) in January 2024. Our goal is to use the infrastructure we created in response to the pandemic to address new and emerging public health issues.