Forecasting the impacts of climate change on vector-borne diseases (VBDs)—especially those under current public scrutiny and concern, such as malaria, dengue, chikungunya, and Zika—is a key component of global public health preparedness, and a key component of the ongoing issue of climate change preparedness. In this talk, I will showcase a strategy for applying ecophysiological models of temperature-dependent transmission to current and future climate models at large scales. I will demonstrate how our collaborative team have used these models to explore future scenarios for malaria, and for Aedes spp transmitted diseases, and how we can use mapping approaches as useful visualization tools, and how we tackle describing the multiple potential outcomes. I will also describe some local-scale, city and province level approaches to understanding vectorborne disease dynamics and management, and explore issues of how these two scales come together (or don’t) for decision making on the ground and in the boardroom.
Results/Conclusions
When communicating the meanings of models of vectorborne disease to practitioners making decisions about intervention, or planning for adaptation, descriptions of uncertainty in models, data, and scales of prediction can differ by application. We found that the implications of the different ecophysiological responses of two Aedes vectors – the Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus mosquitoes – lead to strikingly different geographic shifts in potential transmission risk under different climate models of emissions pathways, with interesting implications for climate mitigation. We also found that placing shifting climate change risks of malaria in Africa into descriptions consistent with intervention options at regional decisions making scales was complicated, but facilitated by matching descriptions of seasons and people at risk to policy language. We found that local scale utility of many large scale models is hampered by crude analysis scales and data availability, particularly in endemic areas, but that discussions at regional scales, anticipating climate impacts, will impact local scale decisions. I will discuss both the development of the science and data within my collaborative work on VBDs, and the experience of interfacing with international agencies making large spending decisions.