Hard-to-manage outbreaks of infectious disease are emerging more frequently, and the U.S. requires public health systems that protect populations against the adverse social, economic, political, psychological and physical impacts. This project involves planning for a future academic research center that blends the social and biological sciences with community knowledge to understand and to promote epidemic control strategies that affected communities consider appropriate in terms of core values, feasibility, fairness, and health benefits. Public health experts, a range of social scientists, and community stakeholders will together explore the organizing question, “What infrastructure – including financing, organizations, personnel, processes, and practices – supports epidemic interventions that address the social norms, cultural values, language needs, economic realities, local knowledge, and active participation of socially vulnerable populations?” With hard-to-manage outbreaks of infectious disease emerging more frequently, the U.S. requires systems that protect populations against adverse social, economic, political, psychological and physical impacts. This project constitutes planning for an academic research center that partners with community stakeholders to advance the understanding, design, and implementation of human-centered infrastructure at the community/public health interface which supports “socially astute” epidemic management. Socially astute describes thos