Our staff of nearly 4,000 is working in more than 50 countries to help people move from vulnerability to security. We are improving individuals’ access to affordable healthcare, promoting economic opportunities for women, and increasing smallholder farmers’ productivity and income. We are partnering with governments to deliver basic services, evaluating and strengthening early education interventions, and mobilizing the private sector to deploy renewable energy. We are creating knowledge, strengthening systems, and directly improving people’s lives.
Our Response to COVID-19
Infectious disease experts have said for years the question isn’t if there would be another pandemic but rather when. COVID-19, which continues to spread around the globe, is just the kind of seismic public health event they predicted.
And its impact goes way beyond health.
Abt is addressing this unfolding crisis on many fronts, including data science, public policy research, and population research. Interdisciplinary teams are looking at implications for everything from housing policy and early release from jails and prisons, to food waste management disruptions and resulting increase in methane emissions.
We’ve learned two important lessons from previous pandemics:
Effective social and behavior change communication is critical and must be deployed quickly. Abt issued a white paper on this subject within two weeks of state-issued stay-at-home orders.
A research strategy should be ready for launch immediately upon an outbreak—and funding for that research must be in place.
Abt has been asked by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to conduct studies of five population cohorts, using an existing infrastructure that Abt set up in 2013 as part of an influenza pandemic preparedness strategy.
Visit our Covid-19 Insights page, where you will find dozens of pages of content, including white papers, blogs, podcasts, project briefs, and feature stories discussing the pandemic.
