Supporting Ebola Combat with Satellite Images: The MSF Perspective

Abstract

From the onset of the Ebola crisis, high resolution satellite imagery were used for digitizing roads, villages and towns, and to support base mapping of most affected areas. MSF's GIS unit requested the support of hundreds of volunteers of the OpenStreetMap community to manually digitize small subzones. The digitized data are available to be downloaded and used by GIS officers to support MSF work in the field with thematic maps as well as tailored base maps.

Studying Vector-Borne Disease Transmission in Public Health Education Using a Geospatial Curriculum Approach

“…Mapping is fundamental when thinking about disaster relief and control of epidemics. For example, the timeliness and mapping of data were instrumental in providing medical resources to address the recent Ebola outbreak (Koch, 2015;Lessard-Fontaine, Soupart, & de Laborderie, 2015). As public health moves into the 21st century, with the increased emphasis on globalization, information dissemination, and communication, the use of GIS mapping holds much promise to address these needs for future directions in public health education.…”

"It's for sure conscious that we stay central": Barriers in Accessing Preventive Resources for Chlamydia among Youth in Southwest Calgary

“…The geospatial approach has been used to investigate, detect and explain spatial patterns and diffusion of communicable diseases (Dummer, 2008;Lessard-Fontaine et al, 2015), which are distinct due to their spatial variability and their diffusion over time (Cromley and McLafferty, 2012). To emphasize, the geospatial approach has been useful in providing real-time data to inform spatiotemporal analysis and remote monitoring of health phenomena (Teng et al, 2014).…”

“…To summarize, the geospatial approach has been used in numerous studies that address various geographic themes such as the spatial and / or temporal trends and patterns of diffusion of diseases (Chunara et al, 2012;Lessard-Fontaine et al, 2015;Carrel et al, 2016;Ye et al, 2016), healthcare inequalities (Krieger et al, 2003;Grady, 2006), and geographic access to health services and proximity to risk factors (McLafferty and Grady, 2005;Chirowodza et al, 2009;Luo and Qi, 2009;Okwaraji et al, 2012;Engler-Stringer et al, 2014;Jones et al, 2016). Despite its outlined usefulness, the geospatial approach has often been criticized for being overly descriptive and interested in associations without explaining causal mechanisms (Openshaw, 1991).…”