Implementing an Urban Public Health Observatory for (Near) Real-Time Surveillance for the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic is broadly undercutting global health and economies, while disproportionally impacting socially disadvantaged populations. An impactful pandemic surveillance solution must draw from multi-dimensional integration of social determinants of health (SDoH) to contextually inform traditional epidemiological factors. In this article, we describe an Urban Public Health Observatory (UPHO) model which we have put into action in a mid-sized U.S. metropolitan region to provide near real-time analysis and dashboarding of ongoing COVID-19 conditions. Our goal is to illuminate associations between SDoH factors and downstream pandemic health outcomes to inform specific policy decisions and public health planning.