European Monitoring Systems and Data for Assessing Environmental and Climate Impacts on Human Infectious Diseases

Abstract

Surveillance is critical to understanding the epidemiology and control of infectious diseases. The growing concern over climate and other drivers that may increase infectious disease threats to future generations has stimulated a review of the surveillance systems and environmental data sources that might be used to assess future health impacts from climate change in Europe. We present an overview of organizations, agencies and institutions that are responsible for infectious disease surveillance in Europe. We describe the surveillance systems, tracking tools, communication channels, information exchange and outputs in light of environmental and climatic drivers of infectious diseases. We discuss environmental and climatic data sets that lend themselves to epidemiological analysis. Many of the environmental data sets have a relatively uniform quality across EU Member States because they are based on satellite measurements or EU funded FP6 or FP7 projects with full EU coverage. Case-reporting systems for surveillance of infectious diseases should include clear and consistent case definitions and reporting formats that are geo-located at an appropriate resolution. This will allow linkage to environmental, social and climatic sources that will enable risk assessments, future threat evaluations, outbreak management and interventions to reduce disease burden.

New technologies in predicting, preventing and controlling emerging infectious diseases

“…25,26 An extensive review of the infectious diseases surveillance and environmental monitoring systems in place in the EU is presented elsewhere. 27 However, national surveillance programs have been reluctant in incorporating event-based systems and their application during real-time health events has been limited. 9 This may be due to weaknesses in the amount, relevance, accuracy and prompt dissemination of data generated and lack of user confidence.…”

The cross-cutting contribution of the end of neglected tropical diseases to the sustainable development goals

“…Each species responds to environmental changes differently, and in order to predict the movement of disease through ecosystems, we have to rely on expertise from the fields of veterinary, medical, and public health in line with the One Health strategy [160]. Modelling and surveillance of human and vector behaviour can also help us better understand the environmental and climatic factors driving diseases and help counteract potential impacts [161, 162]. …”

Development of Disease‐specific, Context‐specific Surveillance Models: Avian Influenza (H5N1)‐Related Risks and Behaviours in African Countries

“…Too many agencies, usually built along professional traditions, still lack centralized decision-making. Human health agencies tend to lack veterinary epidemiological expertise and animal health agencies may not possess human epidemiological expertise (Rabinowitz et al, 2012;Nichols et al, 2014).…”