Keywords
early warning systems, human health, environmental models, fuzzy logic
Start Date
1-7-2010 12:00 AM
Abstract
It is becoming increasingly clear that changes in the environment can promote growth ofdisease vectors like mosquitoes and rodents as well as rise in water-borne illnesses likecholera and other enteric diseases. Our paper is based on the concept that a multidisciplinaryinformatics scaffold can serve as an Early Warning and Automated Response System(EWARS) for a variety of communicable diseases. It will utilize multiple informationresources including Remote Sensing (RS), Global Positioning Systems (GPS) andGeographic Information Systems (GIS) for exposure assessment (John et al 2004). Earlywarning systems are not new (Witt et al 2009). However, what is novel in the proposal isthe integration of an adaptive Fuzzy Logic Decision Support System to the early warningcomponent being developed by the investigative team. It also markedly differs fromother efforts to provide decision-support in the unique degree of detail and process guidancedelivered as well as in the broad multidisciplinary nature of the study group. Use ofsuch a system would enable prophylactic public health interventions to be rapidly deployedbased on a real-time, scientifically-based assessment of the threat environment.Particular attention would be paid to environmental factors amenable to corrective interventions.The informatics component of the system would be based on open source software,and the software developed during this project will also be in the open source domain.The project is multinational and multidisciplinary.
Multi-disciplinary Development of an Early Warning and Automated Response System (EWARS) for Epidemic Prevention
It is becoming increasingly clear that changes in the environment can promote growth ofdisease vectors like mosquitoes and rodents as well as rise in water-borne illnesses likecholera and other enteric diseases. Our paper is based on the concept that a multidisciplinaryinformatics scaffold can serve as an Early Warning and Automated Response System(EWARS) for a variety of communicable diseases. It will utilize multiple informationresources including Remote Sensing (RS), Global Positioning Systems (GPS) andGeographic Information Systems (GIS) for exposure assessment (John et al 2004). Earlywarning systems are not new (Witt et al 2009). However, what is novel in the proposal isthe integration of an adaptive Fuzzy Logic Decision Support System to the early warningcomponent being developed by the investigative team. It also markedly differs fromother efforts to provide decision-support in the unique degree of detail and process guidancedelivered as well as in the broad multidisciplinary nature of the study group. Use ofsuch a system would enable prophylactic public health interventions to be rapidly deployedbased on a real-time, scientifically-based assessment of the threat environment.Particular attention would be paid to environmental factors amenable to corrective interventions.The informatics component of the system would be based on open source software,and the software developed during this project will also be in the open source domain.The project is multinational and multidisciplinary.
