The Seattle Pandemic Preparedness Cohort (SeaPrep) Study

The Seattle Pandemic Preparedness Cohort (SeaPrep) study is a five-year University of Washington research project funded by the CDC to monitor respiratory viruses. Building on previous research, SeaPrep tracks 26 pathogens like COVID-19, influenza, and RSV to understand their circulation, evolution, and impact on community health, aiming to inform public health responses and vaccine design, especially for potential outbreaks such as H5N1 avian flu.

The SeaPrep study has two components. One is a longitudinal community cohort of 2,000 children and adults in the Seattle area. Participants will be asked to fill out a weekly online symptom survey and, if they develop symptoms of a respiratory illness, to collect nasal swabs to send to the laboratory for virology testing.

The other component will separately enroll 150 households with a confirmed respiratory viral infection for daily symptom screening and scheduled swabbing for up to two weeks — to help researchers understand how viruses spread within a household. The study also will provide home test kits for flu and COVID-19 so participants can collect a swab and obtain a test result without waiting for a lab diagnosis.

Nasal swabs will be tested for 26 respiratory pathogens. For viruses of particular interest, such as SARS-CoV-2 and RSV, viral genomes will be sequenced to identify the strains causing infections, and to identify new variants. All viral sequences generated will be uploaded to publicly available genomic-sequence repositories so other scientists can access the data for their research.