2006 Summer Workshop on Environment and Health
Title I: Modeling Infectious Disease Transmission and Control and GIS Applications
Lecturer:
Xu Bing, Assistant Professor, University of Utah, bingxu@nature.berkeley.edu
Location: Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang, Jiangxi, P.R. China
Time: June 18-19, 2006
Introduction:
According to the WHO estimates, infectious diseases caused 14.7 million deaths in 2001, accounting for 26 percent of total mortality worldwide (WHO, 2002). Patterns of transmission of infectious diseases are related not only to the physical environment via human land use activities but also to the social activity of human and their connectivity at various spatial and temporal scales. The globalization promoted by trading and tourism has also fundamentally altered the spreading pattern of infectious diseases and intensified their level of transmission. However, our knowledge on the transmission of various infectious diseases is uneven and uncertain. Quantification the transmission process of infectious diseases at the satisfactory level is hardly achieved for any type of infectious disease, but emergent.
Our general questions to answer are: how would the transmission of a particular infectious disease respond to environmental change? How would it respond to changes of living style? How would it respond to changes of land use activities? How would it respond to the change in social connectivity? How would it interact with globalization?
This lecture will offer one session to the theory and model development, one session to applications on schistosomasis and HIV/AIDS studies and GIS applications in public health studies, and the lab practice with newly developed program for infectious disease studies.
Theory and model formation:
(1) A mathematical model is developed based on environmental factors, such as temperature, precipitation, vegetation coverage and type, elevation; disease vector data, such as snail or mosquito survey density, infectious stage; and epidemiological data, such as population infection, worm burden, parasites density. (2) Sensitivity of such a model is tested to calibrate and physically explain model parameters and variables. (3) The consequences of disease transmission are examined as a result of environmental change, and tested by various control strategies through scenario formation and model simulation. 4) Spatial and social connectivity is constructed through immediate neighbors or a flow network. The impact of spatial and social connectivity is examined for better control strategies on spatial decision making.
* This workshop is co-sponsored by the MOST Grant “The Early Warning System of Schistosomiasis in China” (科技部“十五”国家科技攻关计划“中国血吸虫病早期预警系统应用研究”) at the Key Lab of Remote Sensing Science of CAS and Jiangxi Normal University, the NSFC Grant “The Development of Space-Time Model and Technology” （国家自然科学基金课题“时空统计分析方法与技术研究”）at Jiangxi Normal University, the Key Lab of Poyang Lake Ecological Environment and resource Development of Jiangxi Normal University.
Software:
Home-made simulation and mapping package, Berkeley Madonna, and ArcGIS
Case studies:
(1) Schistosomiasis endemic at local scale (environmental factors, spatial connectivity)
(2) Malaria outbreak at global scale (environmental factors, social connectivity)
(3) HIV/AIDS epidemic at global scale (social connectivity)
Title II: Agent-Based Modeling for understanding human-environment interactions
Presenters:
Daniel Brown, Associate Professor, University of Michigan, danbrown@umich.edu
Li An, Assistant Professor, San Diego State University, lan@email.sdsu.edu
Location: Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang, Jiangxi, P.R. China
Time: June 20-21, 2006
Introduction:
The primary goal of this workshop is to further the objectives our collaborative project on land use and flooding in the Poyang Lake Region. The following topics will be covered on the workshop: (1) introducing project collaborators to agent-based modeling; (2) presenting a mature application of agent-based modeling in the Wolong Reserve, Sichuan Province; (3) introducing a simple tool for exploring agent-based models; (4) identifying the dominant agents and agent decision-making processes in the Poyang Lake Region; and (5) designing an initial agent-based model of land-use change in the region.
* This workshop is co-sponsored by the University if Michigan NASA Grant “Changing Responses of Land Dynamics and Vulnerability to Flooding Under Policy and Environmental Change near Poyang Lake, China” , Jiangxi Normal University NSFC Grant “The Simulation of Land Use and Land Cover Changes in Poyang Lake Region”(中国国家自然科学基金课题 “鄱阳湖区土地利用和土地覆盖变化模拟研究”), and the Key Lab of Poyang Lake Ecological Environment and Resource Development of Jiangxi Normal University.
