Understanding the impact of climate change on human health: using remote sensing to define associations between environmental parameters and vector-borne diseases

Climate change has been identified as one of the biggest challenges facing humankind. It is predicted to impact not only on temperature but also atmospheric moisture, precipitation and atmospheric circulation. These in turn will impact the hydrological cycle, especially the character of precipitation (amount, frequency, intensity, duration), and extreme events (floods and droughts) directly impacting human society.

Climate change is also likely to impact human and animal health indirectly, as the geography of infectious diseases adapt, including changes in spatial and temporal distribution and seasonal activity of vector- and water-borne diseases, such as malaria, leptospirosis, dengue fever and rift valley fever, changing the risk. Many of these diseases are zoonotic (transmitted from animals to humans) and disease burden has massive impacts, not just for individual health but also economic and social impacts on families and communities, in terms of health care costs, loss of income, and huge pressure on health care facilities during epidemics. This burden is likely to increase.

Of paramount importance is the need to better understand the impact of climate change on human health. However, many knowledge gaps exist. Specifically there is a need to understand the relationship between particular disease patterns and their associated environmental parameters. Relevant environmental data can be obtained from satellite images, which provides a cost-effective rapid means of gathering data.

This inter-disciplinary project will combine fluvial geomorphology, spatial epidemiology, remote sensing and GIS technologies to develop a tool to predict disease outbreaks in Tanzania, and provide a unique training opportunity, and exciting, vital research. In turn this will provide timely warnings of epidemics due to an improved understanding of possible causal factors, and an increased ability to identify high risk populations, enabling the concentration of limited resources at hotspot locations and assisting in hazard reduction by raising community awareness of risks involved.

The prestigious Lord Kelvin/Adam Smith PhD Scholarship scheme was established in 2007 to support the development of innovative, boundary-crossing research at the University of Glasgow. The scheme supports new partnerships between members of staff and will offer outstanding research students both from home and abroad the opportunity to undertake doctoral training in the context of cutting edge interdisciplinary research projects.