A special interactive break-out session on how mapping and modelling approaches are helping with neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) research and programme design is to be held as part of the up-coming Coalition for Operational Research on Neglected Tropical Diseases (COR-NTD) 2016 Meeting.
The "Maps and Models for Program Decision-Making" break-out session on 10 November will highlight the value of spatial maps of disease distribution and transmission models for NTDs research and broad-scale policy planning. NTDs maps and models are regularly used by both policy makers and researchers for planning and advocacy at regional and global scales, and are now increasingly contributing to within-country planning.
This hands-on session will highlight some of the key advances in the spatial epidemiology of NTDs including the most up-to-date approaches to NTDs mapping. It will also discuss the impact of increased access to sub-national NTD data and how researchers are making more of the data available to them by linking high resolution risk maps to transmission dynamic models.
Examples covered during the meeting will include:
- New approaches to mapping of case-management NTDS including human African trypanosomiasis;
- an updated interactive NTD mapping tool;
- a new interface to project lymphatic filariasis programmes' scale and duration in Ethiopia.
The session is being convened by the London Applied & Spatial Epidemiology Research Group (LASER) from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and by the NTD Modelling Consortium. It will be chaired by LASER's Dr Rachel Pullan and Wellcome Trust Research Fellow, Dr Kebede Deribe.
In addition to this break-out session, Dr Pullan will also be launching an updated ntdmap.org as part of the COR-NTDs Innovation Lab. The online NTD mapping tool enables users to visualise and manipulate geographic data on NTDs. Ntdmap.org is being relaunched with improved dynamic map functionality and undated data sets. The tool has been developed by a consortium of research and programme partners to meet the needs of national programmes and international partners when planning integrated NTD programmes.
The annual COR-NTD meeting is taking place on 10-11 November in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. The meeting aims to strengthen the community of researchers, programme implementers and their supporters to address knowledge gaps in a coordinated way, thus informing the agenda of future research and facilitating the global efforts of the World Health Organization and endemic countries to overcome NTDs.