One Health is a concept that the environment, animal life, and human health are in a balanced relationship. Climate change and human environmental impacts are causing emerging zoonosis and changing infectious disease epidemiology's. Clinicians are taught to take travel histories and correlate them with a previously learned knowledge of epidemiology. However, all the resources we have teach epidemiology as a static concept, not recognizing the dynamic nature of zoonotic and vector-borne infectious disease distribution. The era of big data and informatics have the potential to greatly aid us in solving this problem. It has long been possible to track animal habitats and migration; however, there have been little attempts to integrate this into our knowledge of infectious disease distribution. Our project proposes to use the ArcGIS system to combine data from biologists and physicians to create a up to date distribution of diseases that patients are at risk for, based on ecological patterns. It would help with diagnosis of patients suspected of zoonotic or vector-borne diseases as well as in counselling travelers. Integration of technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning could also predict future disease distribution. BlueDot is an existing platform that focuses on public health risks, however the platform's design shows the feasibility of our idea.

Authors:

Stephen Lee (Presenter)
Oregon Health and Science University

Patty Langasek, Oregon Health and Science University