Agentic Epidemiology with Sentinel System

Engineering Rural Health Resilience through Autonomous Digital Infrastructure
Principal Investigator: Akshaya S. Bhagavathula, PhD, FACE Professor of Epidemiology, Department of Public Health, North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND, USA

Project Summary

Agentic Epidemiology is a systems-engineering approach to rural health resilience. This project integrates:

• PLANE: Population Dynamics Monitoring
• UBERS: U.S. Built Environment Resilience System
• Agentic AI: Autonomous, goal-driven digital health agents

Together, these components form a digital nervous system for monitoring, assessing, and repairing vulnerabilities in North Dakota’s health infrastructure.

Core Concepts

Static Public Health vs. Dynamic Vulnerability

Traditional epidemiology relies on retrospective mapping. Rural service disruptions evolve rapidly, and static maps cannot anticipate cascading failures.

Paradigm Shift: Engineering Resilience

Agentic Epidemiology reframes public health as an engineering discipline:

• PLANE models population movement and service dependence
• UBERS models built environment resilience
• Agentic AI evaluates system health and proposes interventions

The AI Health Extension Agent

A goal-oriented digital agent that:

• Monitors real-time status of hospitals, pharmacies, and WIC offices
• Assesses causal impact on residents
• Identifies “Synergy Anchors” to stabilize the system

Case Study: The Resilience Bridge

Scenario: A rural pharmacy closes unexpectedly.
Impact: 1,200 residents enter a medication desert.
Agentic Response: The system detects the failure within seconds and identifies alternative anchors (Extension Offices, Schools) to construct a temporary “Resilience Bridge,” such as mobile medication delivery.

Strategic Value

• Supports interdisciplinary collaboration across Nursing, Pharmacy, and Social Work
• Elevates Extension Agents as operational resilience anchors
• Aligns with NIH and NSF Smart Health priorities
• Provides a scalable model for rural states with fragile service networks

Interactive Dashboard

This repository includes an interactive UBERS Simulator (HTML) for exploring:

• Service failures
• Synergy Partner identification
• Resilience Bridge generation
• Community vulnerability patterns

Access at: https://aidea1.github.io/agent-epidemiology/