Nonpharmaceutical Interventions (NPIs)

Protect yourself and others from getting and spreading respiratory illnesses like pandemic flu.

Nonpharmaceutical Interventions (NPIs)  are actions, apart from getting vaccinated and taking medicine, that people and communities can take to help slow the spread of illnesses like pandemic influenza (flu). NPIs are also known as community mitigation strategies. When a new flu virus spreads among people, causing illness worldwide, it is called pandemic flu. Because a pandemic flu virus is new, the human population has little or no immunity against it. This allows the virus to spread quickly from person to person worldwide. NPIs are among the best ways of controlling pandemic flu when vaccines are not yet available.

This website provides decision makers, planners, and public health professionals with educational tools, resources, pandemic planning guides, checklists, and select research about the types of NPIs and how they work in different settings.

• CDC released updated pre-pandemic planning guidelines entitled Community Mitigation Guidelines to Prevent Pandemic Influenza – United States, 2017.
• Pre-pandemic NPI planning guides to help states and localities operationalize the 2017 guidelines and assist them with pre-pandemic flu planning and decision-making are available for different audiences and community settings.

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