With more than 6.5 million fans from more than 100 countries converging on cities across the U.S., Mexico and Canada for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, public health stakes are significant. Mass gatherings create conditions where localized outbreaks can rapidly become international events, making timely, integrated situational awareness essential for officials protecting public health. This summer, that critical role is being filled by a new Health Security Operations Center (HSOC) that relies on the University of Hawaiʻi’s Pacific Disaster Center (PDC)’s DisasterAWARE platform as a key data source and decision-support tool.
Georgetown University and MedStar Health established the HSOC under their joint National Center for Health Security and Resilience. The team is leveraging DisasterAWARE to fuse disparate data streams—including wastewater surveillance, electronic health records, hospitalizations and real-time health reports—gathered across all 16 host cities.
By integrating and analyzing disease signals, they provide decision makers with early, actionable warnings. More than 350 organizations, including hospital emergency managers, state and local health officials, and federal agencies, are enrolled to receive the HSOC’s daily situation reports.
Hazard intelligence, complex missions
“Working alongside MedStar and Georgetown officials on the inside of the HSOC, DisasterAWARE is revolutionizing how we monitor disease during large-scale events,” said Tim Manning, former deputy administrator of FEMA and PDC senior advisor. “PDC’s hazard intelligence capabilities bridge health data streams from numerous sources into a single, coherent operating picture, significantly enhancing the way we protect public health when the world comes together.”
PDC’s support during this high-profile event demonstrates how purpose-built hazard intelligence can be rapidly adapted to meet complex, emerging missions. For an organization that has spent decades building the tools, frameworks and partnerships that help nations anticipate and respond to disasters of every kind, supporting the HSOC is a natural extension.
“DisasterAWARE was built to deliver clarity in the world’s most complex, high-stakes environments, and a global event of this magnitude, the World Cup, is exactly that kind of environment,” said Erin Hughey, Deputy Executive Director of the Pacific Disaster Center. “Seeing our platform serve as a cornerstone of national health security operations at this scale is a powerful testament to what PDC has built over decades: a globally trusted capability that protects people wherever the threat originates.”
