ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the role of infectious disease forecasting in informing public policy. However, significant barriers remain for effectively linking infectious disease forecasts to public health decision making, including a lack of model validation. Forecasting model performance and accuracy should be evaluated retrospectively to understand under which conditions models were reliable and could be improved in the future. Using archived forecasts from the California Department of Public Healths California COVID Assessment Tool (https://calcat.covid19.ca.gov/cacovidmodels/), we compared how well different forecasting models predicted COVID-19 hospitalization census across California counties and regions during periods of Alpha, Delta, and Omicron variant predominance. Based on mean absolute error estimates, forecasting models had variable performance across counties and through time. When accounting for model availability across counties and dates, some individual models performed consistently better than the ensemble model, but model rankings still differed across counties. Local transmission trends, variant prevalence, and county population size were informative predictors for determining which model performed best for a given county based on a random forest classification analysis. Overall, the ensemble model performed worse in less populous counties, in part because of fewer model contributors in these locations. Ensemble model predictions could be improved by incorporating geographic heterogeneity in model coverage and performance. Consistency in model reporting and improved model validation can strengthen the role of infectious disease forecasting in real-time public health decision making. Significance StatementSpurred by the COVID-19 pandemic, infectious disease forecasting has gained prominence as a source of public health intelligence that ultimately may shape public health policy. Importantly, validation of forecast results is a critical, but often missing step to refine evidence-based decision making. We conducted a retrospective analysis of forecasts from the California Department of Public Healths California COVID Assessment Tool. Model performance was variable across counties, and the best performing model could be predicted by local transmission dynamics, variant prevalence, and county population size. Less populous counties had fewer model contributors and generally had higher ensemble model error. Ensemble model performance could be improved by capturing these county-level differences and by incentivizing model coverage in less populous and underserved regions.
