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Modelling Climate-Sensitive Disease Risk: A Decision Support Tool for Public Health Services

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Book cover Communicating Climate-Change and Natural Hazard Risk and Cultivating Resilience

Part of the book series: Advances in Natural and Technological Hazards Research ((NTHR,volume 45))

Abstract

In order to control the spread of diseases and prepare for epidemics, decision support systems are required that take into account the multifaceted array of factors that contribute to increased disease risk. Climate forecasts, which predict the average climate conditions for forthcoming months/seasons, provide an opportunity to incorporate precursory climate information into decision support systems for climate-sensitive diseases. This aids epidemic planning months in advance, for diseases such as dengue, cholera, West Nile virus, chikungunya and malaria, among others. Here, we present a versatile model framework, which quantifies the extent to which climate indicators can explain variations in disease risk, while at the same time taking into account their interplay with the intrinsic/internal features of disease dynamics, which ultimately shape their epidemic structure. The framework can be adapted to model any climate-sensitive disease at different spatial/temporal scales and geographical settings. We provide case studies, quantifying the impact of climate on dengue and malaria in South America, Southeast Asia and Africa.

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Acknowledgements

The research leading to these results has received funding from the DENFREE project (grant agreement no. 282378) and EUPORIAS project (grant agreement no. 308291) funded by the European Commission’s Seventh Framework Research Programme.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut Català de Ciències del Clima (IC3), Barcelona, Spain

    Rachel Lowe Ph.D. & Xavier Rodó Ph.D.

  2. Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats (ICREA), Barcelona, Spain

    Xavier Rodó Ph.D.

Authors
  1. Rachel Lowe Ph.D.
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  2. Xavier Rodó Ph.D.
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Rachel Lowe Ph.D. .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. College of Business, University of Michigan-Dearborn, Dearborn, Michigan, USA

    Jeanette L. Drake

  2. International Arctic Research Center, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, Alaska, USA

    Yekaterina Y. Kontar

  3. University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, Alaska, USA

    John C. Eichelberger

  4. International Arctic Research Center, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, Alaska, USA

    T. Scott Rupp

  5. Department of Communication, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, Alaska, USA

    Karen M. Taylor

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© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

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Lowe, R., Rodó, X. (2016). Modelling Climate-Sensitive Disease Risk: A Decision Support Tool for Public Health Services. In: Drake, J., Kontar, Y., Eichelberger, J., Rupp, T., Taylor, K. (eds) Communicating Climate-Change and Natural Hazard Risk and Cultivating Resilience. Advances in Natural and Technological Hazards Research, vol 45. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20161-0_8

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