FluImpact is easy to download and install on any desktop or laptop computer. If your computer is running Microsoft Windows, you can download, install and run FluImpact today, and you don't need to have any other software installed to run it.

FluImpact is fast and user-friendly. FluImpact's graphical user interface makes it easy for the user to navigate between editing disease and population parameters, and viewing and exporting results. Changes can be made on-the-fly and results can be viewed immediately, all on your own computer and without requiring the help of super-computer programs run by National Labs.

FluImpact sessions are portable. Sessions created within FluImpact can be shared easily with other FluImpact users by simply saving and emailing ".flu" files back and forth. Your colleagues don't have to go through the trouble of re-entering all your parameters to view your results -- they simply open your ".flu" file and can immediately see what you need them to.

All FluImpact results are exportable. Unlike protected spreadsheet applications, FluImpact allows you to export and view all the data behind every graph produced by the application, whether it's time-series or bar charts. The data is exported in tab-delimited format, and is compatible with a wide variety of text-editors, spreadsheet and database programs, and word processors.

With FluImpact you can customize disease parameters. FluImpact's friendly graphical user interface lets the user see what parameters are defining their influenza simulation, and customize the values at will. This transparency makes sure the user is aware of all the assumptions driving the simulation, and the flexibility allows for the exploration of "what-if" scenarios, including mutated and newly emerging viruses.

FluImpact accounts for dynamic disease transmission. While it may be simpler to quantify the number of people who will get sick with the flu by just looking at the Gross Attack Rate, this doesn't account for the way people really interact with each other. By following the movement of influenza back and forth between susceptible and infected individuals, FluImpact provides a more realistic view of how the disease will impact the population.

FluImpact accomodates highly structured populations. When evaluating the impact of influenza, it is important to recognize that populations are defined by more than just age structure. FluImpact allows the user to describe their populations based on groups and sub-populations -- and these classifications can be defined however you like, be it age groups, geographic locality, employment status or any other demographic definition. Each sub-population can have different contact rates, disease parameters, vaccination coverage and vaccine efficacy. This allows the user to explore vaccination priority groups, social distancing and quarantine, and how these interventions will impact the course of the epidemic within sub-populations, groups and the population as a whole.

FluImpact accounts for the impact of vaccination. FluImpact does much more than simply count the number of vaccine doses you need to cover your population -- though it does calculate that value as well. Within FluImpact, individuals within sub-populations are able to receive prophylactic vaccination to protect them against influenza, based on the 1st and 2nd dose coverage rates defined by the user in the scenario parameters. FluImpact’s model assumes that two doses of vaccine, spaced a month apart, are necessary to provide the maximum protection against infection, as defined by the vaccine efficacy inputted by the user, and that partial protection is offered by receiving just a single dose. Since it is assumed that vaccinations are not able to be delivered instantaneously to the entire population, and that public demand for vaccination may change over time for the duration of the flu season, vaccination uptake is modeled within FluImpact as a function of time. As individuals get vaccinated they receive full or partial protection from being infected with influenza, which results in potentially fewer individuals getting sick -- and thus fewer sick people able to infect others.

FluImpact users can input and compare multiple influenza scenarios side-by-side. Instead of laboriously inputting data and trying to remember output between one run and another, FluImpact allows the user to run up to nine outbreak scenarios simultaneously and view them all on the same graph for side-by-side comparison. This makes it easier to see the reduction in cases and deaths when vaccination coverage is increased or contact rates are decreased, for example, or to evaluate what might happen if death rates were higher in one demographic than another. The benefits are endless!