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SPARS 2025–2028: What it is, why it was created, and what planners should take from it

At a glance

SPARS 2025–2028 is a fictional tabletop training scenario developed by the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security (CHS) to help public health leaders practice risk and crisis communication around medical countermeasures (MCMs) during a prolonged pandemic. It was released on October 23, 2017—well before COVID-19—and is not a prediction of future events. Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security+2Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security+2

Origin & purpose

  • Who built it? A multidisciplinary CHS team led by Monica Schoch-Spana, with coauthors including Matthew Shearer, Emily Brunson, Sanjana Ravi, Tara Kirk Sell, Gigi Kwik Gronvall, and Hannah Chandler. Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security
  • Why? To give communicators a realistic “sandbox” for rehearsing dilemmas that arise when drugs, vaccines, and other MCMs are developed, authorized, distributed, and monitored under uncertainty. Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security
  • How does it fit into CHS’s work? SPARS grew out of CHS’s earlier FDA-funded work compiling real-world MCM communication challenges and producing a communication casebook of best practices (2014–2016). Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security

Key documents from Johns Hopkins CHS:

Supporting/related publications:

The scenario, in brief

  • Pathogen & arc: A novel coronavirus (“SPARS”) emerges in 2025, first recognized in a major U.S. city, and spreads domestically and to 40+ countries over a three-year period (2025–2028). Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security
  • MCM storyline: An existing drug is repurposed for symptom management while U.S. authorities and industry fast-track a vaccine; countries differ in strategy and outcomes. Communications challenges persist into the recovery phase as health systems face post-SPARS complications and long-tail concerns. Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security
  • Training focus: The narrative walks users through timed injects and decision points about rumor control, adverse event communication, message alignment across agencies, cultural/ethical issues, and media relations—with prompts to craft messages and policies under pressure. Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security

What SPARS is not

Because the document uses a realistic style (news clips, social media posts, memos), it is sometimes misrepresented online. CHS explicitly states: SPARS is a hypothetical training exercise, not a forecast or plan. Use it to practice responses—not to infer intent. Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security

Practical takeaways for public health planning & policy

  1. Plan MCM communications early and often. Build templates and playbooks for EUAs, dosing changes, prioritization, and risk/benefit framing so messages are ready when evidence evolves. (See CHS casebook best-practices.) Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security
  2. Anticipate adverse-event discourse. Prepare transparent AE/VAERS-style messaging, plain-language explanations of uncertainty, and clear pathways for compensation/indemnity discussions before the first dose is given. Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security
  3. Coordinate interagency messages. Define who leads on what (FDA, CDC, state health, hospitals) to avoid contradictions that erode trust. Exercise those roles in advance. Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security
  4. Meet communities where they are. Incorporate cultural competency, address historical distrust, and recruit local opinion leaders—all emphasized in CHS’s prior casebook and embedded throughout SPARS. Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security+1
  5. Practice the recovery phase. Communications don’t stop when cases decline; plan for long-term messaging about post-infection complications, clinic backlogs, research gaps, and program sunsets. Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security

How to use SPARS in your organization

Download & reference list (primary Johns Hopkins sources)

Additional supportive listings:

  • ASPR TRACIE resource page linking to the SPARS scenario. ASPR TRACIE

Bottom line

SPARS is a training lens for the hardest part of pandemic response: communicating under uncertainty about medical countermeasures over years, not weeks. Use it now to rehearse transparent, coordinated, community-attuned messaging—and to surface the policy decisions you’ll want resolved before the next crisis. Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security

Editor