Project to Predict Disease Risk in Eastern Africa Enters Crucial Phase
13 January 2014
Austria
One key output of the project is the development of decision support tools (DSTs) designed to assist health planners in formulating, assessing and comparing strategies for managing human responses to risks posed by these diseases under conditions of global change (including environmental, climate and socioeconomic change).
As HEALTHY FUTURES enters its final phase in 2014, effective communication will be needed to provide a firm foundation for stakeholder uptake, ownership and further development of the DSTs, their dissemination, and their use beyond the project’s end. To ensure this occurs, HEALTHY FUTURES has conducted a stakeholder network mapping exercise to support engagement with stakeholders and to identify relevant entry points into the stakeholder network.
Building on this, representatives from HEALTHY FUTURES held a one-day meeting in October 2013 on ‘Malaria Seasonal Forecasting and Climate Change Adaptation’, which focused on malaria DSTs. This meeting, held in Kampala, Uganda, involved stakeholders from the health sector, academia, researchers, and representatives from malaria-focused institutions. At the meeting, HEALTHY FUTURES project coordinator, Professor David Taylor, emphasised the necessity that the project’s outputs enhance mobility, quantify disease impacts and, above all, facilitate decision-making. Reports on both the network mapping exercise and the stakeholder meeting are available to download from the project website (www.healthyfutures.eu).
The feedback received and the recommendations made at the Kampala meeting will contribute to the planning of the upcoming regional stakeholder engagement workshop to be held at the International Livestock Research Institute’s facilities in Nairobi, Kenya, from 24 – 25 February 2014. Through consultation with stakeholders, the workshop aims to better refine the DSTs in order for them to be of maximum value to the end-users once they are implemented.
The HEALTHY FUTURES project is also addressing the challenge of providing reliable climate change information to help account for the spatial and temporal distributions of malaria, schistosomiasis and RVF in order to support impact and adaptation efforts in the region. An ensemble of high-resolution climate simulations for eastern Africa has been produced with future climate projections from three different global climate models downscaled, in different combinations, from two regional climate models. All regional simulations are transient and the ensemble samples two Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) scenarios. Such an ensemble of regional climate simulations for eastern Africa, at an unprecedentedly high resolution, is unique and will provide crucial information for disease modeling and adaptation planning. It is expected that these projections will be made available on the project website in early 2014.
These activities complement a major international workshop ‘Climate Change and Vector Borne Diseases: Past, Present and Futures’ that will bring together health experts in adaptation and policy, and will review climate change simulations relating to the three target VBDs in order to better understand how such dynamics may translate to other at-risk regions. The workshop will also discuss how other diseases may be addressed by the approach developed by HEALTHY FUTURES. Due to organisational delays this event is being rescheduled to later in 2014.
Details of the project events will be posted on the project website as they become available. Issue 5 (January 2014) of the HEALTHY FUTURES Newsletter is available to download from the project website.
Notes for Editors
Detailed partner profiles are available on request.
Trinity College Dublin is the coordinator of this project, with AquaTT as the project administrator partner. Prof David Taylor, formerly of Trinity College Dublin and now based at the National University of Singapore, is the Scientific Coordinator of this project. The HEALTHY FUTURES project has received funding from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement n° 266327.
Trinity College Dublin (TCD), founded in 1592, is the oldest University in Ireland. TCD now has more than 15,700 students, 3,700 staff and 86,000 alumni, while in 2007-2008 its staff secured more than €70 million in research income. TCD is widely recognised for the high quality of its graduates, the international standing of its research and scholarship, and the value it places on contributing to Irish society and the wider world. In the most recent (2009) THES survey of universities internationally, TCD was ranked in the top 50 (43rd) and in the top 15 (13th) universities in the world and in Europe, respectively.
Contact: Dr. Laragh Larsen, Geography, School of Natural Sciences, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland (email: llarsen@tcd.ie )
National University of Singapore (NUS) is a leading global university centred in Asia. NUS is currently (2012) ranked in the top 25 universities globally according to the QS ranking of top universities in the world. NUS comprises 16 faculties and schools across three campus locations in Singapore – Kent Ridge, Bukit Timah and Outram. The university provides a broad-based curriculum underscored by multi-disciplinary courses and cross-faculty enrichment. Over 37,000 students from 100 countries further enrich the community with their diverse social and cultural perspectives.
Contact: Prof. David Taylor (Project Coordinator), Department of Geography, NUS (email: david.taylor@nus.edu.sg)
AquaTT is an international non-profit organisation that aims to bridge the knowledge gap between the dynamic R&D environments and the progressive commercial sector. AquaTT supports its target audiences through the provision of support services and through participation in, and coordination of EU projects and initiatives in the area of knowledge management, including customised dissemination, education, training and knowledge transfer.
Contact: Paul Lowen (Project Officer), AquaTT (email: paul@aquatt.ie)
As HEALTHY FUTURES enters its final phase in 2014, effective communication will be needed to provide a firm foundation for stakeholder uptake, ownership and further development of the DSTs, their dissemination, and their use beyond the project’s end. To ensure this occurs, HEALTHY FUTURES has conducted a stakeholder network mapping exercise to support engagement with stakeholders and to identify relevant entry points into the stakeholder network.
Building on this, representatives from HEALTHY FUTURES held a one-day meeting in October 2013 on ‘Malaria Seasonal Forecasting and Climate Change Adaptation’, which focused on malaria DSTs. This meeting, held in Kampala, Uganda, involved stakeholders from the health sector, academia, researchers, and representatives from malaria-focused institutions. At the meeting, HEALTHY FUTURES project coordinator, Professor David Taylor, emphasised the necessity that the project’s outputs enhance mobility, quantify disease impacts and, above all, facilitate decision-making. Reports on both the network mapping exercise and the stakeholder meeting are available to download from the project website (www.healthyfutures.eu).
The feedback received and the recommendations made at the Kampala meeting will contribute to the planning of the upcoming regional stakeholder engagement workshop to be held at the International Livestock Research Institute’s facilities in Nairobi, Kenya, from 24 – 25 February 2014. Through consultation with stakeholders, the workshop aims to better refine the DSTs in order for them to be of maximum value to the end-users once they are implemented.
The HEALTHY FUTURES project is also addressing the challenge of providing reliable climate change information to help account for the spatial and temporal distributions of malaria, schistosomiasis and RVF in order to support impact and adaptation efforts in the region. An ensemble of high-resolution climate simulations for eastern Africa has been produced with future climate projections from three different global climate models downscaled, in different combinations, from two regional climate models. All regional simulations are transient and the ensemble samples two Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) scenarios. Such an ensemble of regional climate simulations for eastern Africa, at an unprecedentedly high resolution, is unique and will provide crucial information for disease modeling and adaptation planning. It is expected that these projections will be made available on the project website in early 2014.
These activities complement a major international workshop ‘Climate Change and Vector Borne Diseases: Past, Present and Futures’ that will bring together health experts in adaptation and policy, and will review climate change simulations relating to the three target VBDs in order to better understand how such dynamics may translate to other at-risk regions. The workshop will also discuss how other diseases may be addressed by the approach developed by HEALTHY FUTURES. Due to organisational delays this event is being rescheduled to later in 2014.
Details of the project events will be posted on the project website as they become available. Issue 5 (January 2014) of the HEALTHY FUTURES Newsletter is available to download from the project website.
Notes for Editors
Detailed partner profiles are available on request.
Trinity College Dublin is the coordinator of this project, with AquaTT as the project administrator partner. Prof David Taylor, formerly of Trinity College Dublin and now based at the National University of Singapore, is the Scientific Coordinator of this project. The HEALTHY FUTURES project has received funding from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement n° 266327.
Trinity College Dublin (TCD), founded in 1592, is the oldest University in Ireland. TCD now has more than 15,700 students, 3,700 staff and 86,000 alumni, while in 2007-2008 its staff secured more than €70 million in research income. TCD is widely recognised for the high quality of its graduates, the international standing of its research and scholarship, and the value it places on contributing to Irish society and the wider world. In the most recent (2009) THES survey of universities internationally, TCD was ranked in the top 50 (43rd) and in the top 15 (13th) universities in the world and in Europe, respectively.
Contact: Dr. Laragh Larsen, Geography, School of Natural Sciences, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland (email: llarsen@tcd.ie )
National University of Singapore (NUS) is a leading global university centred in Asia. NUS is currently (2012) ranked in the top 25 universities globally according to the QS ranking of top universities in the world. NUS comprises 16 faculties and schools across three campus locations in Singapore – Kent Ridge, Bukit Timah and Outram. The university provides a broad-based curriculum underscored by multi-disciplinary courses and cross-faculty enrichment. Over 37,000 students from 100 countries further enrich the community with their diverse social and cultural perspectives.
Contact: Prof. David Taylor (Project Coordinator), Department of Geography, NUS (email: david.taylor@nus.edu.sg)
AquaTT is an international non-profit organisation that aims to bridge the knowledge gap between the dynamic R&D environments and the progressive commercial sector. AquaTT supports its target audiences through the provision of support services and through participation in, and coordination of EU projects and initiatives in the area of knowledge management, including customised dissemination, education, training and knowledge transfer.
Contact: Paul Lowen (Project Officer), AquaTT (email: paul@aquatt.ie)