Tag: Malaria

Evaluating the Impact of Malaria Control Programs in Africa

Studies Show that Malaria Interventions are Critical Investments for Saving Lives in Africa New studies released today in a special supplement of the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene add to the evidence that over the last decade, global malaria control efforts have saved millions of children’s lives in areas most affected by malaria. […]

Climate mapping tools support resilient development in East Africa

Yohana Tesfamariam Tekeste reports from a workshop on climate resilient development held in August in Zanzibar. In 2005, the International Research Institute for Climate and Society published its assessment of key gaps in the use of climate information for health, agriculture, water and other sectors in countries across Africa. The results from the report were […]

Malaria risk increases in Ethiopian highlands as temperatures climb

The highlands of Ethiopia are home to the majority of the country’s population, the cooler climate serving as a natural buffer against malaria transmission. New data now show that increasing temperatures over the past 35 years are eroding this buffer, allowing conditions more favorable for malaria to begin climbing into highland areas. That is the […]

ENACTS Maprooms for Malaria Control

Climate data and tools for malaria control in Africa – the ENACTS initiative By Madeleine Thomson Public health policy makers and practitioners are increasingly concerned about the  impact that climate, environmental and social changes might have on the effectiveness of current and future vector-borne disease control and elimination programs. Yet, while climate change adaptation programs […]

IRI@AMS 2016: Schedule of Events

From crowd-sourcing tornado data to teaching Harlem high-school students about climate change and climate justice, IRI scientists will be sharing a number of fascinating projects at the annual meeting of the American Meteorological Society (AMS) next week in New Orleans.  Below is a schedule of their presentations and posters. Presenting authors appear in bold. Crowd-Sourcing the Storm: A New […]

2015 El Niño: Notes for the East African Malaria Community

UPDATE: This publication was originally produced by IRI in June 2015. It has been updated monthly, and the October 2015 version is now available here [PDF].  Climate is one of many variables that influence where and when malaria outbreaks occur. Precipitation, humidity and temperature affect the development and survival of mosquitoes, with temperature also affecting the malaria parasites carried […]

World Malaria Day: What’s Climate Got To Do With It?

Today, April 25, marks the commemoration of World Malaria Day, instituted by World Health Organization (WHO) Member States in 2007 as an annual “occasion to highlight the need for continued investment and sustained political commitment for malaria prevention and control.” Climate is one of many variables that influence where and when malaria outbreaks occur. The International Research Institute […]

El Niño and Global Health: Latest Bulletin

The Public Health group at the International Research Institute for Climate and Society has posted a new update of its bulletin on El Niño, focused on providing information to assist health planners and practitioners concerned with malaria in Eastern Africa. Emerging El Niño Conditions: Notes for the East African Malaria Community, takes into account IRI’s latest forecasts. As with previous bulletins, IRI […]

Data for Malaria Decision Making in Africa

Earlier this year, the International Research Institute for Climate and Society and Columbia Global Centers | Africa  supported a two-day meeting of the Roll Back Malaria Partnership in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania called “Strengthening National Climate Data and Information for Malaria Decision Making in Africa”. The meeting, held August 4-5, provided an overview of existing […]

Climate’s Role in Malaria

Today marks World Malaria Day, instituted by World Health Organization (WHO) Member States in 2007 as an annual “occasion to highlight the need for continued investment and sustained political commitment for malaria prevention and control.” The theme for this year’s World Malaria Day is Invest in the Future. Defeat Malaria.  The Investment of Research Climate is an […]

Climate Change: A Global Public Health Issue

By Madeleine Thomson, Senior Research Scientist For a long time people perceived climate change as an environmental issue–the concern of environmentalists, the concern of a few. It was reframed as a justice issue at the turn of the 21st century, when it became clear that those most likely to suffer the consequences of climate change […]

IRI@AGU: Inundation Detection for Public Health is “Far-out”

This post is the third in a series of Q&As with scientists from the International Research Institute for Climate and Society who will be presenting their work at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco December 9 to 13. Climate variability and change is an important facet of public health studies of infectious […]

A Healthy Collaboration

Diseases influenced by climate include malaria, dengue fever and cholera. Changes in climate can alter how these and other infectious diseases develop and spread. Scientists at the International Research Institute for Climate Society (IRI) research ways to mitigate the effects of current transmission and future changes of such diseases as participants in the Pan American Health Organization […]

Climate and Society Students ‘Develop’ Research for NASA, IRI

Predicting malaria outbreaks before they occur and improving crop yield forecasts from space might sound like science fiction, but they’re projects going on at the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI). This spring, Climate and Society students Caitlin Reid and Sunny Ng jumped headlong into them as part of a NASA internship. Reid and Ng worked with […]

Visualizing Malaria from Space

By Elisabeth Gawthrop, Climate and Society ’13 Public health professionals are increasingly concerned about the impact climate variability and change can have on infectious diseases such as malaria, dengue fever and bacterial meningitis. However, in order to study the relationships between climate and health, researchers first need access to the appropriate kinds of climate data — an […]

Climate Smart Public Health

What do hot summer days in Beijing and heavy rains in rural Colombia have in common? Both are climate events that can trigger a host of public health calamities. And they’re just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the ways that climate and health interact. Despite strong connectivity between the two disciplines, […]

Important Gains Made in Global Effort to Control Malaria

A massive scale-up in the distribution of insecticide-treated mosquito nets and other control programs are helping to protect more than half a billion people in sub-Saharan Africa against malaria, according to the World Health Organization. In its latest World Malaria Report, the organization cited these efforts as contributing to significant but fragile decreases in malaria […]