Santé publique France is France’s national public health agency. A public institution under the authority of the Minister of Health, formed through the merger of several public institutions and established by Ordinance 2016-246 of April 15, 2016, the agency works to promote public health. As a scientific, expert, and public health safety agency, its missions include:

1. Epidemiological observation and surveillance of the population’s health status; 
2. Monitoring health risks threatening the population;
3. Promoting health and reducing health risks;
4. Developing prevention and health education;
5. Preparation for and response to health threats, alerts, and crises;
6. Issuing public health alerts.

The agency is organized into 12 departments—some scientific, some cross-functional, and some providing operational support.

The agency’s strategic priorities and work program, established by its Board
of Directors, are organized into three areas: Strengthening the capacity for anticipation and rapid response to health threats; Measuring and assessing the extent of diseases and risk factors to guide their prevention and control; Strengthening the health impact of all public policies and the prevention and promotion of health.

Data Support, Processing, and Analysis Directorate (DATA) - Support and Methods Unit for Surveillance Studies and Investigations (AMETIS)

Internship Responsibilities

Working in a multidisciplinary environment, in close collaboration with statisticians/data scientists and epidemiologists, the intern will be responsible for:

• Understand the landscape of ARI surveillance data in France; identify the specific characteristics of each data source to plan its integration into a comprehensive model.
• Conduct a brief literature review on recent methods for the early detection of outbreaks caused by respiratory viruses. Particular attention will be given to (Bayesian) spatiotemporal and multivariate models. Note: Some of these models may incorporate data science methods such as deep learning or infectious disease transmission models.
• Build a model for the early detection of winter epidemics and test it on surveillance data for acute respiratory infections (ARIs), influenza, and COVID-19 to generate alerts at the national and regional levels. The programming language used will be R, specifically via the INLA package. Development tools available to the student will include RStudio, Positron, VScode, IA Mistral, and Git/GitLab.

Objective of the Internship

• To propose and implement, following a brief literature review, a method for the early detection of winter epidemics. This method will be based on a multivariate spatiotemporal model to account for the geographic dimension of the monitored time series and the multiplicity of data sources. The model will be tested on influenza, acute respiratory infections (ARIs), and COVID-19.