15 years of household flu data may be one giant leap for prevention

What it is: The grant from the National Institutes of Health will fund a team of the country's leading influenza researchers' efforts to analyze flu transmission data from hundreds of Michigan households. Through the establishment of the Michigan Center for Research on Influenza Transmission, or MiCRIT, the researchers will develop an even deeper understanding of how the virus spreads person to person and how to prevent it. They'll do that by scouring and applying data from 15 years worth of specimens collected from households that have participated in past studies. The research team will also continue enrollment of Michigan households for additional data collection moving forward.

Why it matters: Influenza leads to significant illness and death worldwide with an estimated 3 million to 5 million cases of flu each year and 250,000 to 500,000 annual deaths. In the U.S. last year there were 32 million flu illnesses, nearly 400,000 hospitalizations and 24,000 deaths, including 192 children. Seasonal flu also results in $29 billion in economic losses annually through direct medical expenses and lost work productivity and other costs. Additionally, the unprecedented losses from the COVID-19 pandemic and ongoing avian influenza viruses add to the need for understanding and preventing respiratory virus transmission. 

The new flu research bridges a critical gap in prevention science by overcoming limitations of animal and experimental models, which often fail to fully replicate how the virus spreads among humans. Despite major advancements in vaccinations, treatments and air quality innovations, influenza remains a leading cause of global illness and mortality because real-world human transmission factors have historically been difficult to isolate and control.

How much and for how long: A special NIH program is funding the University of Michigan team with $14.2 million for five years of research. The University of Missouri, Duke University and St. Jude's Children’s Hospital also received awards from this NIH initiative.

Who's involved: Emily Toth Martin, professor of epidemiology at the School of Public Health and co-director of both the Michigan Center for Respiratory Virus Research and Response and the Michigan Public Health Integrated Center for Outbreak Analytics and Modeling.

"Building our real-world evidence base around the causes of influenza transmission will benefit the scientific community and public health by informing future work on prevention of common influenza strains that cause significant economic loss annually in the United States," she said.

Adam Lauring, the Lydia DeWitt Collegiate Professor of Internal Medicine and chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at the Medical School. He is also professor of microbiology and immunology and of ecology and evolutionary biology at the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts.

"Our unifying theme is that impactful insights into influenza transmission will come from studies in households, where much of influenza transmission occurs," he said. "Our research team has led the field in the planning and implementation of observational studies of infection with and transmission of influenza and other respiratory viruses with a continuously funded set of cohorts since 2010."

Lauring and Martin will lead the program, which also includes investigators Marisa Eisenberg, Andrew Brouwer and Joe Eisenberg of the School of Public Health; Herek Clack and Alex Rodriguez of the College of Engineering; and the Center for Complex Systems. The program also involves collaborations with investigators at the University of Chicago and the Fred Hutch Cancer Center in Seattle.