The INFORM COVID-19 Risk Index is a composite index that identifies: "countries at risk from health and humanitarian impacts of COVID-19 that could overwhelm current national response capacity, and therefore lead to a need for additional international assistance".

The INFORM COVID-19 Risk Index is primarily concerned with structural risk factors, i.e. those that existed before the outbreak. It can be used to support prioritization of preparedness and early response actions for the primary impacts of the pandemic, and identify countries where secondary impacts are likely to have the most critical humanitarian consequences.

The main scope of the INFORM COVID-19 Risk Index is global and regional risk-informed resource allocation, i.e. where comparable understanding of countries’ risk is important. It cannot predict the impacts of the pandemic in individual countries. It does not consider the mechanisms behind secondary impacts - for example how a COVID-19 outbreak could increase conflict risk. INFORM is working on developing other products that can help monitor changing risks as a result of the pandemic.