Pandemic Center

Jennifer Nuzzo, DrPH

Director of the Pandemic Center, Professor of Epidemiology at the Brown University School of Public Health
pandemic_center@brown.edu
Research Profile
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Biography

Jennifer Nuzzo is a nationally and globally recognized leader on global health security, public health preparedness and response, and health systems resilience. Together with colleagues from the Nuclear Threat Initiative and Economist Impact, she co-leads the development of the first-ever Global Health Security Index, which benchmarks 195 countries’ public health and healthcare capacities and capabilities, their commitment to international norms and global health security financing, and socioeconomic, political, and environmental risk environments.

In addition to her scholarly work, Nuzzo regularly advises national governments and for-profit and nonprofit organizations on pandemic preparedness and response, including during the COVID-19 pandemic. She is a pandemic advisor for Impact Assets’ Stop the Spread Campaign. She is currently a member of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine’s (NASEM) Standing Committee for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Center for Preparedness and Response.

Her articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, Fox News, Politico, The Hill, and The Boston Globe. She was featured in Debunking Borat, a television series on Amazon Prime Video, and her work was featured on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. She served as COVID Advisor for the Borat Subsequent Moviefilm.

 

Recent News

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Pandemics & measles & AIDS: Oh my! Where Trump-Kennedy public health policy will lead

Things were going to change in public health. That much was certain after President Donald Trump chose Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be his secretary of health. One contributor to the Bulletin compared Kennedy, who built a career sowing distrust of vaccines, to Trofim Lysenko, the Soviet official who embraced pseudoscientific agricultural practices and sparked widespread famine, or Thabo Mbeki, the South African president who rejected the science of HIV/AIDS and exacerbated the disease’s devasting toll in that country. Yet Kennedy has managed to shock health experts.

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The Spokesman Review

What is ‘Subclade K’? The new flu variant may already be in Spokane

Much of the country is facing record flu cases thanks to a new strain of the virus. And the “subclade K” variant is likely already here in Spokane.

The new strain formed last year as influenza A’s H2N3 virus mutated. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the mutated form of the virus accounts for 91.2% of flu present in the United States. The surprise variant was not factored into this year’s flu vaccine, so the vaccine may be less effective because of it.

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The National News Desk

CDC changes to childhood vaccine advice called arbitrary and dangerous

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(TNND) — President Donald Trump celebrated a revision to the government's recommendations for childhood vaccinations that he said would "no longer require 72 'jabs' for our beautiful, healthy children."

But leading medical groups sounded an alarm over the changes as arbitrary and dangerous.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is now recommending routine vaccinations against 11 diseases, down from 17 as of the end of 2024.

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Guardian

US sees spike in flu cases in December, after most severe season since 2018

The United States has seen the number of influenza cases climb significantly in December, coming after the most severe flu season since 2018, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said.

It’s not yet clear whether there will be an increase in the total number of people who get the flu this season – or whether more people just got it at once in December – but more than 3,100 people died from the virus in the US in the year ending August 2025, according to the latest data from the CDC.
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Washington Post

Flu cases are rising with a strain that makes older people sicker

Cases of influenza in the United States are rising, driven by a new strain that public health officials worry current vaccines may not protect against as effectively.

Health officials and researchers say that although the flu season has not reached its peak, the spike in cases is not historically unusual — and they stress vaccines probably still offer protection against the worst effects of the strain.

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Jennifer Nuzzo in the News

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The National News Desk

RFK Jr. overhauls vaccine advisory panel; doctor calls it 'dark day for public health'

(TNND) — Health officials are sounding alarms over Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s decision to overhaul a vaccine advisory board with his appointees.

The Health and Human Services secretary announced Monday in a Wall Street Journal opinion article that he was replacing all 17 members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.

The ACIP is an expert scientific panel that develops vaccine recommendations for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The immunization schedule, or list of recommended shots, for kids is based on the panel’s advice to the CDC.

The ACIP recommendations have consequences for which vaccines insurers are willing to cover and which vaccines doctors recommend to their patients.

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News from SPH

Are we ready?

Five years after the start of the global COVID-19 pandemic, School of Public Health experts look to Washington as they weigh in on where our biosurveillance tools and preparedness systems stand now: What’s changed, what hasn’t and what must be built to make us ready for the next pandemic?
CFR - Youtube

CFR 4/2 Global Affairs Expert Webinar: Complex Public Health Emergencies

Jennifer Nuzzo, professor of epidemiology and director of the Pandemic Center at Brown University's School of Public Health, leads the conversation on complex public health emergencies.

This work represents the views and opinions solely of the author. The Council on Foreign Relations is an independent, nonpartisan membership organization, think tank, and publisher, and takes no institutional positions on matters of policy.