The Preparedness Lab

Flatten the Curve... for Learning

Interactive tools for teaching public health, outbreak preparedness and response. Each one puts the learner in front of a decision, and then shows them what it cost.

Working under uncertainty, weighing containment against livelihoods and trust, judging when the evidence is strong enough to act: these are the hardest parts of outbreak response, and they are rarely learned well from being told about them. They are learned by deciding under pressure and then living with the result, even when the result is simulated.

If you teach or design training in this field, everything here is free to use in non-commercial teaching, and most of it can be adapted to a different context, audience or pathogen.

Explore the tools Get in touch

10 interactive tools, free for non-commercial teaching

4 teaching programmes they were built for

3 formats — multiplayer, self-paced, exercise series

Teaching tools

Built to make learners decide

The tools here are proof of concept as much as finished products. Each one started from a specific teaching problem: a concept that wasn't landing, a case study that deserved more than a lecture slide, a skill that could only be built through practice.

They have been used in postgraduate classrooms and professional training settings, and adapted for different regional contexts and audience levels. The list of problems that would suit the same treatment is a good deal longer than what is here so far.

Select any tool for details and links

Multiplayer simulation · facilitated

One Health Outbreak Simulation

Original work · developed for the Singapore Field Epidemiology Training Programme

Six rounds
Four teams per room
2–3 hours
Any browser, one device per team

A facilitated team simulation of a zoonotic outbreak, played out in a scenario called Spillover at the Forest Edge. Four teams each hold one sector — public health, animal health, food safety and environment — and because every team is given only its own sector's information, none of them can contain the outbreak without the other three.

The session is about multisector collaboration under pressure: where it creates opportunities, where it generates friction, and what it costs to hold together. The outbreak is the setting in which participants meet those problems; the scenario itself is not the subject being taught.

The room opens with scattered signals arriving from four directions and no diagnosis. Across six timed rounds the teams investigate, decide and commit resources, and the facilitator resolves each round on a board the whole room can see. The outbreak, public trust and the economy belong to everyone — no team has a score of its own, so a shortcut taken by one sector becomes a problem the other three have to manage.

Constraints built into the simulation

Each team sees only its own sectorA team is shown its own signals, resources and decisions. Anything the rest of the room has established has to reach it some other way.

Measures work only as well as the room's knowledgeA control measure taken before the source is understood delivers a fraction of its effect, and spending more does not compensate for skipping the investigation.

Severity, trust and livelihoods tracked separatelyContainment achieved through coercion registers as lost trust and lost income, and low trust then reduces compliance with every measure that follows.

Budget and field teams both run outOne budget for the whole outbreak, a few field teams each round, and a share of a single national laboratory. Money spent early is unavailable at the peak.

Every option costs somethingOne forced decision per sector per round where both courses carry a real cost — and declining to decide carries a cost as well.

Teaching comes after playParticipants play first. The frameworks are named in the debrief, against decisions they have already made and can remember making.

The scenario's parameters, clinical course and control measures follow the published record of a real zoonotic outbreak. The pathogen is not named to participants until the debrief.

Facilitator materials include a live run guide with per-round guidance and a full debrief script, participant briefs and role cards, teaching decks, and a sourced evidence pack. Please get in touch for access.

Explore it

See how it works ↗ Request access

© 2026 Dr. Louisa Sun, National University Health System. Developed for the Singapore Field Epidemiology Training Programme. The scenario is fictional; its parameters are drawn from the published record of a real outbreak.

Scenario-based simulation · self-paced

IPC in Outbreak Response — Ward Simulation

MSc Infection Prevention & Control · Alice Lee Centre for Nursing Studies, NUS

Eight scenes
~20 minutes
IPC nurses & postgraduate students
Self-contained in the browser

A scenario-based interactive simulation for IPC nurses and postgraduate students. Walk through the early detection, response pillars, and recovery phases of a hospital outbreak — making decisions that connect global systems to what happens on the ward. Developed for the MSc in Infection Prevention and Control at the Alice Lee Centre for Nursing Studies, National University of Singapore.

How it works

8-phase scenarioFrom the first signal through to recovery, covering preparedness, response pillars, genomics, and global coordination.

MCQ & multi-selectKnowledge checks with detailed feedback and "key learning" takeaways after each decision.

Drag-and-drop sequencingTrace how a ward report becomes global guidance — and returns to the bedside.

Knowledge cardsExpandable panels explain core concepts like the Swiss cheese model, flattening the curve, and the IHR.

Built for nursing educationAligns with IPC learning outcomes and uses language and scenarios familiar to ward-based staff.

Self-contained & self-pacedRuns entirely in the browser — ideal for individual study or facilitated group debrief.

The simulation takes approximately 20 minutes and can be used as a standalone learning activity or as part of a larger IPC curriculum. It emphasises the role of the nurse in recognising signals, translating guidance, and leading IPC at the ward level.

The public link is a preview: scenes 1–3 are fully playable, and scenes 4–8 are available to enrolled students of the MSc programme.

Try it

Launch simulation ↗ Request instructor notes

Exercise series · self-paced

Interactive Exercise Series

Exercise architecture · companions to The Formula for Better Health by Dr. Tom Frieden

Seven exercises
Undergraduate & graduate modes
~15 minutes each
Standalone or within a course

A series of interactive exercises developed to accompany the teaching materials for The Formula for Better Health. The underlying case studies, pedagogical framework, and content are Dr. Frieden's. The contribution here is the interactive exercise architecture — the structural design that turns each case into a decision-based learning experience.

The architecture

Decision-point structureLearners commit choices before reasoning is revealed, preventing passive reading of feedback.

Dual-mode designUndergraduate and graduate modes toggle cognitive demand on the same material.

Consequence engineDecisions carry forward across acts, making the relationship between choices operational.

Consistency-check mechanismSurfaces contradictions between a learner's own analysis and their subsequent design decisions.

Assumption-recording frameworkLearners commit stated assumptions before outcomes, making the debrief accountable to their own logic.

Scenario formatsInbox simulations and cohort dashboards replicate the actual information environment of a decision-maker.

Each exercise is designed for standalone use within a structured course or workshop. Visit formulateaching.theformulaforbetterhealth.net for the full instructor resources.

The seven exercises

Why We Ignore WarningsChapter 2

→

The Pathway to ProgressChapter 3

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Believe in a Healthy FutureChapter 4

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Smallpox EradicationChapters 3–5

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MDR-TB, New York CityChapters 1–5

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Ebola in GuineaChapters 7 & 8

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Smoke-Free New YorkChapters 8 & 1

→

Looking further

What else

Beyond what's here

The same approach applies wherever a learner needs judgement rather than recall. Some problems in public health training and education that would suit it:

Laboratory capacity and accreditation

Walking health workers through accreditation standards as an interactive decision sequence, rather than a static checklist or manual.

Public health workforce onboarding

Orienting new staff to outbreak protocols and institutional systems through scenario-based exercises that build judgment, not just familiarity.

Risk communication practice

Designing messages for different audiences, outbreak stages, and trust contexts, with feedback that surfaces the consequences of each choice.

One Health tabletop exercises

Cross-sectoral teams navigating a zoonotic spillover event, with mechanics that make the human-animal-environment interface operationally real.

Surveillance system design

Building a sentinel network under resource and time constraints, with competing priorities that force genuine tradeoffs.

Policymaker decision support

Translating outbreak modelling outputs and epidemiological evidence into decision-relevant formats for non-technical audiences.

Community and school-level education

Making epidemic dynamics tangible for younger or non-specialist audiences through simplified but structurally honest simulations.

Something not on this list

If you have a teaching problem in outbreak preparedness that belongs here, or one that doesn't, get in touch.

Start a conversation

About

Dr. Louisa Sun

Dr. Louisa Sun (MB BS, MMed (Int Med), MRCP(UK), MPH) is an infectious diseases and public health physician based in Singapore. She is Head and Consultant of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Alexandra Hospital, National University Health System, and a Visiting Consultant at the National Centre for Infectious Diseases.

Her clinical work spans infectious disease medicine, infection prevention and control, and antimicrobial stewardship. She has led outbreak response operations at the institutional level — including large-scale field response during the COVID-19 pandemic — and contributes to national public health policy across communicable disease governance and antimicrobial resistance. Globally, she is engaged in outbreak preparedness and response through the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN).

In education, she has contributed to the development and delivery of postgraduate programmes in infectious disease emergencies and infection prevention and control, and holds teaching appointments at the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore.

Alongside this work, she develops interactive teaching tools for outbreak preparedness education — and is always looking for new problems worth solving.

If any of that resonates, please get in touch.

Connect on LinkedIn

Contact

Let's build something

Every tool here began with someone bringing a teaching problem: a subject matter expert, an educator, or an institution that could already see what wasn't working. If you have one, get in touch.

Commissions, partnerships, and adaptations for non-commercial use are all possible.

The Preparedness Lab

Built to make learners decide

Strategic Outbreak Response Simulation

Strategic Outbreak Response Simulation

One Health Outbreak Simulation

One Health Outbreak Simulation

IPC in Outbreak Response — Ward Simulation

IPC in Outbreak Response — Ward Simulation

Interactive Exercise Series

Interactive Exercise Series

More tools on the way

More tools on the way

Beyond what's here

Laboratory capacity and accreditation

Public health workforce onboarding

Risk communication practice

One Health tabletop exercises

Surveillance system design

Policymaker decision support

Community and school-level education

Something not on this list

Dr. Louisa Sun

Let's build something