Maria P Deza Leon, MD

Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine

Full Biography

Maria Deza Leon, MD, Infectious Diseases, received funding in the amount of $73,620 from Children’s National Hospital’s Pediatric Pandemic Network Pilot and Emerging Issues Program. The funding is for the project “Forecasting Hospital Surges: Identifying Predictive Factors for Respiratory Infection Outbreak” and covers a project period of June 1, 2025-August 31, 2026.

The project specifically looks at the role acute respiratory infections (ARI) play in hospital surges. As Dr. Deza Leon explains, ARI represent a significant burden on pediatric healthcare, especially during peak seasons, leading to overcrowding and reduced care quality. With inpatient pediatric response capacity declining due to nationwide staff shortages and pediatric unit closures, development of accurate forecasting methods is essential for surge preparedness.

This project will evaluate the predictive capacity of two approaches for forecasting hospital surges: community surveillance in schools and air sampling in hospital settings.

The first approach assesses whether increased pathogen detections in school-based testing can predict pediatric hospitalizations and Emergency Department (ED) visits. The study leverages the School KIDS project, which collects nasal swabs from students and staff from a large public school district in the Kansas City metropolitan area, to monitor respiratory viruses. Trends in school-based detections will be analyzed for correlation with hospital admission trends and early signal detection of surges.

The second approach examines the effectiveness of air sampling in the ED as an early warning system for hospital surges. Weekly air sampling in the Children’s Mercy ED will test for multiple respiratory pathogens, with results compared to hospital admission trends.

“By evaluating these methods, we hope to identify effective strategies that predict hospital surge for early detection of respiratory infection outbreaks, with the goal of enhancing hospital preparedness and optimizing resource allocation,” said Dr. Deza Leon.

Mentors on this project include Jennifer Goldman, MD, and Jennifer Schuster, MD, both in the Division of Infectious Diseases.

This subaward funding from the Pediatric Pandemic Network is through a prime award to Children’s National Hospital from Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA).

The Pediatric Pandemic Network is supported in part by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of cooperative agreements U1IMC43532 and U1IMC45814 with 0 percent financed with nongovernmental sources. The content presented here is that of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement by HRSA, HHS, or the U.S. Government. For more information, visit HRSA.gov.