Making the connection between climate and infectious diseases, from education to early warning
Abstract
Climate and weather variability exert influence on the life cycles of infectious agents like pathogens and parasites and the vectors that transmit them to humans. But translating historical analysis of climate and weather factors in infectious diseases into models that provide useful forecasts of where and when outbreaks may occur has been challenging. And uptake by the public health community of infectious disease and climate modeling results is often limited.
John Balbus has been engaged in various efforts to promote understanding of the linkages between climate and infectious diseases and develop public health forecasts. Working through the US Global Change Research Program (GCRP), Balbus has helped lead efforts to build predictive modeling capacity for infectious diseases and national assessments of climate change impacts on human health. Along with colleagues from NOAA, the State Department and other agencies, he helped produce a GCRP report on "Predicting Climate-Sensitive Infectious Disease to Protect Public Health and Strengthen National Security". Balbus has also worked with colleagues in the Caribbean and India to integrate climate and health data to develop analyses and predictive capability for vector borne diseases. Partnering with the GLOBE program and other partners, NIEHS has developed educational materials on climate and health linkages, including those relevant to vector borne diseases, into classrooms around the world. This presentation will describe how applications of geosciences and earth observations can benefit human health in domestic and international settings.- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2018
- Bibcode:
- 2018AGUFMGH24A..06B
- Keywords:
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- 0230 Impacts of climate change: human health;
- GEOHEALTHDE: 0232 Impacts of climate change: ecosystem health;
- GEOHEALTHDE: 0240 Public health;
- GEOHEALTHDE: 0245 Vector born diseases;
- GEOHEALTH