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9th International Conference on Digital Public Health

By Saqar ' M Al Zaabi, on 27 February 2020

The team from UCL IRDR Centre for Digital Public Health in Emergencies (dPHE) attended the 9th International Conference on Digital Public Health (www.acm-digitalhealth.org) chaired again by the dPHE Centre Director, Prof Patty Kostkova.

Held on 20th – 23rd November 2019 in Marseille, France, the DPH 2019 was supported by the newly established UCL IRDR Centre for Digital Public Health in Emergencies (dPHE) and for the first time held in conjunction with a public health event – 12th European Public Health Conference 2019 and continue our cooperation with ACM Special Interest Group on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (SIGKDD). There were two parallel tracks on digital health: 9th DPH 2019 conference with technical focus, and a joint track with EPH ‘Digital Applications in Health’ bringing public health applications of digital health. Young researchers, MSc and PhD students enjoyed a truly interdisciplinary ‘Young Researches Forum’ day organised in collaboration with ASPHER, the Association of Public Health Schools in the European Region.

Building on the growing success of previous editions (2008 London, 2009 Istanbul, 2010 Casablanca, 2011 Malaga, 2013 Rio de Janeiro, 2014 Soul, 2015 Florence, 2016 in Montreal, 2017 London, 2018 Lyon), the 9th International Digital Public Health conference mission has ideally met the EPH 2019 vision: ‘Building Bridges for Solidarity and Public Health’.

This year, we enjoyed exciting plenary session bringing the highest calibre of international speakers for topical panel debates: ‘AI and Big Data: Ethical challenges and health opportunities’ (chaired by Patty, organised jointly with EPH), international perspective was discussed at a DPH plenary on ‘Challenges of Implementing Healthcare Technology and Innovation across Europe and Beyond’ (chaired by Dr Arnold Bosman) and lessons learned from successful DH innovation projects will be highlighted at plenary on ‘Digital Health Innovation: From Proof of Concept to Public Value’ (chaired by Dr Michael Edelstein). The role of fake news in social media for public health is addressed at the joint session: ‘Online anti-vaccination movements: The role of social media in public health communications’ was chaired by Patty and organised jointly by DPH, EUPHA Health promotion section & EUPHA Infection Diseases Control section. Another highlight featured the launch of the European mHealth Knowledge and Innovations Hub – a bold new partnership for the future of mHealth in WHO European Region. DPH 2019 offered even more: a joint EPH and RECON workshop offering a session on programming in R for epidemiologists.

In addition to being busy chairing with the event, Prof Patty Kostkova, Dr. Caroline Wood, Dr. Anwar Musah, Dr Adrian Rubio Solis and Georgiana Birjovanu had the opportunity to present their recent digital solutions to combat antibiotic overuse or to create an early-warning tool for the ZIKA virus and the gamified intervention improving resilience of women in Nepal, MANTRA. Several dPHE papers were published by ACM Digital Library and European Journal on Public Health.

The conference started with the Young Researchers Forum, where postgraduate students were able to present their recent work, followed by an exciting session on Missing Maps. This session, led by Katherine Roberts-Hill from the British Red Cross and Dr. Anwar Musah, and supported by Medicines Sans Frontiers, offered participants the opportunity to contribute to open-source maps that help geolocate women at risk of Female Genital Mutilation in Tanzania. A concurrent Missing Maps session was run at UCL for IRDR students by a guest lecturer at the Digital Heath module – real-time concurrent mapping in two countries – how more digital one can get? 😉

The conference also comprised of many exciting sessions, from talks on how technology can help achieve a healthy lifestyle, assessing food consumption behaviour using machine learning in order to advise patients with diabetes to the potential of AI and Big data in the health domain.

One of the peak moments of this event was represented by the 2019 Innovation Prize Pitches, where the teams pitched for the Best Data-Driven Innovation and the Best Partnership awards. On behalf of UCL, Dr. Caroline Wood presented as the Best Partnership program the GADSA project, a Gamified Antimicrobial Decision Support App that provides feedback to surgeons when prescribing surgical antibiotic prophylaxis. Georgiana Birjovanu pitched for the Best Data-Driven Innovation, presenting the ZIKA platform and mobile app, designed to help health agents in Brazil to gather environmental data and to predict the mosquito populations based on the data collected. Both presentations were awarded the Best Runner Up awards by the international jury.

The Digital Public Health Conference represented a great opportunity to meet experts from different areas within the public health domain – world-class researchers, World Health Organization representatives and small to medium-sized enterprises – it’s where the digital health minds meet. No wonder  #DPH2019 hashtag was trending on Twitter all week.

Please click the link below to watch a video of photos showing the different conference events.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UMQ8ExeLHE4NdPM69Q7AkUTZsWt4IbyV/view

We look forward to DPH 2020 and hope to tempt more IRDR colleagues to attend this exciting event with us 🙂

UCL-ZIKA Mapathon: Mapping of Residential Areas for Mosquito Surveillance in Campina Grande, Northeast Brazil

By ucfausa, on 25 February 2020

On Tuesday, 28th of January, researchers from UCL IRDR Centre for Digital Public Health in Emergencies (dPHE) (Professor Patty Kostkova and Dr Anwar Musah), UCL Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA) (Dr Sarah Wise) and expert mappers from the British Red Cross (Katherine Roberts-Hill and Jiumei Gao) organised an interesting Mapathon session. Through crowd participation, the goal was to map out the entire residential areas of Campina Grande, Brazil.

Campina Grande is an interesting city with varied land-uses in the State of Paraiba. Unfortunately, it is one of many areas in the North Eastern region of Brazil that was hit by the Zika epidemic in 2014/15. UCL IRDR-dPHE alongside researchers from Federal University of Campina Grande and Environmental Health Surveillance agency are working closely to monitor potential mosquito population outbreaks through the development of mobile technologies and GIS. Unfortunately, this area remains unmapped and off-grid. Only scanned paper maps exist for the authorities at Campina Grande, there is presently no spatial data that can be used in a form of early warning detection for potential mosquito outbreaks nor observing the distribution of residential areas inhabited by mosquito breeding. This is where our collaborative research and mapathon comes into play to address such paucity of data.

Students from UCL (IRDR, CASA and Geography), LSHTM as well as external volunteers (GIS experts from London Borough offices, businesses and hikers) and The Red Cross came to this session to learn valuable cartographic skills for digitising scanned paper maps in QGIS. In return, they help us to digitise 47 scanned maps representing the residential areas for neighbourhoods in Campina Grande.

Figure 1: Overall mapathon progress – grey section represents what was mapped by the volunteers.

The result – we were able to complete 38 (out 47 neighbourhoods). This corresponds to a completion rate of 79.0% (3,781 out of 4,787) which represent the number of residential block areas that were digitised during the mapathon (see Figure 1). This is effort is extremely impressive! The event received many positive feedbacks from the participants, as well as the evening atmosphere was great and friendly – we all enjoyed drinks and munched on a tonne of delicious pizzas from Icco’s Pizza while mapping!

If you’re interested in attending a similar Mapathon event, follow @TheMissingMaps on Twitter.

To stay up to date with all UCL IRDR dPHE news and events, follow @UCL_dPHE & @UCLIRDR

Panel discussion on working in challenging environments & conflict zones at the 2019 UCL Humanitarian Summit

By ucfausa, on 3 July 2019

When embarking on fieldwork research in an area that is classed as high risk, it is essential for academics and experts from Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to come prepared; especially when entering into a setting that is characterised by kidnappings, violence, conflicts (or civil crisis), disease outbreak, political instability and/or faced with international sanctions.

On the 19th of June, Dr James Hammond (Reader in Geophysics, Birkbeck), Dr Ahmed Bayes (Lecturer in Risk & Disaster Science, UCL) and Liz Harding (Humanitarian Representative, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)) delivered a series of intriguing talks and an engaging panel discussion about their personal experiences of Working in Challenging Environments and Conflict (& Post-conflict) Zones at the 2019 Humanitarian Summit in UCL, on a panel chaired by Dr Marie Aronsson-Storrier (Lecturer in Global Law and Disasters, University of Reading and member of UCL IRDR Board).

Image 1: Dr James Hammond spoke about his experience and difficulty of doing collaborative research with North Korean scientists. UN sanctions and politics made it increasingly difficult for the teams to work.

The session was kick-off by Dr James Hammond who spoke of his experience and difficulty getting access to do research in North Korea. He worked on a collaborative project with physical scientists from North Korea – the research focusses on volcanic activity and deriving geophysical imaging of the magma plumbing systems that’s beneath Mountain Paektu. He states:

Most scientists from North Korea, and especially researchers from his field of expertise are very keen for international collaboration and support shared knowledge”.

He adds:

However, external factors such as North Korea’s closedness to outsiders and geopolitical influence and international sanctions from the United Nations has made it increasingly difficult for us to conduct their fieldwork activities at Mountain Paektu”.

He quotes a sanction imposed on North Korea which effectively puts his team’s work to a halt: “Suspend all technical and scientific cooperation with North Korea”. Fortunately, he was able to overcome this issue by getting the UK government involved, and through diplomacy and science, they were allowed to continue their research.

Image 2: Dr Bayes Ahmed speaks of his incredible experiences and shares harrowing stories of how three of his research team members were kidnapped in Bangladesh.

The second speaker, Dr Bayes Ahmed, shares his harrowing experience in Bangladesh and how he dealt with three of his research team members being kidnapped. He states:

… before doing fieldwork research which involve humans in the context of conflict or displacement. It is strictly important for academics to comply with all conventional fieldwork procedures such as risk assessments, receiving ethical approval, health insurance etc.

 He also states the following:

 “… it is equally important to know that while the above is all ‘pen and paper’; however, the fieldwork context is completely different and anything can happen.

He provides an example of visiting local communities situated in remote areas of Chittagong (Bangladesh) and how being adventurous was risky behaviour. He narrates how himself and his team mates were taking pictures and video footages of hill cutters who were building apartments along the hills in Chittagong. He was warned by the local villagers to put their cameras away and not to take pictures lest the people may think they are journalists. He was also warned not to sightsee or venture further from their position as certain areas in their community are dangerous. Unfortunately, he and his team did not take the advice of the local villagers – of course, this resulted in three of his colleagues being held captive by kidnappers. Fortunately, Dr Bayes was able to resolve the situation – he had strong connections with politicians and local members with strong influence in Chittagong who intervened. The captives were released within 30 minutes of negotiations.

The last speaker, Liz Harding, shared her incredible fieldwork experiences in high risk areas as a humanitarian representative working for MSF. She spoke about her everyday experiences and risks when working – these ranged from getting access to affected areas, being accepted by the local communities and bureaucracy (i.e. work permits, official documents etc).

Image 3: Liz Harding shares with us her incredible fieldwork experiences in high risk areas as a humanitarian representative working for MSF

Liz Harding gave example of situations where her team have to make really tough decisions – she spoke of how they had to abandon their search and rescue missions of migrants crossing the Mediterranean Basin because the issue became so politically charged in Europe. In South Sudan, she narrates how her medical team had to relocate all medical activities to smaller mobile clinics because their hospital in which they were present was attacked four times.

Personally, for Liz Harding, the toughest part of her work is taking hardest decisions for her team and asking the question of ‘can or should we stay?’. Abandoning a mission or evacuation is based on the following conditions – she states:

… if there’s no more need for our presence; or if the risks are too high for the team.

In addition, she adds:

… or if the government authorities forcefully inform the team to leave the country etc., or if our presence poses a significant risk to the local population”.

An interactive panel discussion was held and the floor was opened for the audience to ask interesting questions.

Image 4: Our three guests with Dr Marie Aronsson-Storrier (far left) chairing the panel discussion. From second left – Dr James Hammond, Dr Ahmed Bayes & Liz Harding.

The 2019 UCL Humanitarian Summit took place on Tuesday 18thJune, and the UCL IRDR 9thAnnual Conference was on Wednesday 19thJune. Selected sessions were live streamed, and these videos are available on our YouTube channel- remember to hit the like button and subscribe to the channel at IRDR UCL.

Follow the Humanitarian Institute on Twitter on @UCLHI

Concerning all photographs used in this blog. All credit goes to the rightful owner and photographer: Professor Ilan Kelman (IRDR, UCL)

In-conversation – Drones for health emergencies: friend or foe? @ the UCL IRDR 9th Annual Conference

By ucfausa, on 3 July 2019

On the 19thof June, Professor Patty Kostkova (UCL IRDR and Director of the UCL IRDR Centre for Digital Public Health in Emergencies) chaired an intriguing panel discussion with invited speaker Jorieke Vyncke (Coordinator of the Missing Maps Activities, Médecins San Frontières (MSF)) on the use Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) (or drones) in low income and low resource settings for health emergencies especially in the context of sub-Saharan Africa.

Image 1: Seated is our panel guest Jorieke Vyncke (left). The session was chaired by Professor Patty Kostkova (right)

Jorieke Vyncke coordinates the Missing maps project and was involved in using drone technology in several MSF missions. In collaboration with organisations as the American and British Red Cross and the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team, the Missing Maps project wants to map the entire world so as to provide baseline data of all locations including villages and important buildings in remote areas. The session was kick-off with Jorieke Vyncke giving the audience an interactive walkthrough with the various model types of UAVs (or drones) used in operations in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia with MSF.

Image 2: Jorieke does a walkthrough of the various drone models used in her day-to-day operations

She spoke of the day-to-day application of drone technologies to address some of the world’s humanitarian crisis and gives an example – she says:

… drones were used by the International Organisation of Migration (IOM) to take direct satellite images for the geospatial triangulation of Rohingya refugee settlements in and around Balukhali in Bangladesh during and after the exodus of Rohingya out of Myanmar in 2017

Image 3: Around Balukhali (Bangladesh) – 2 December 2017 (Drone images IOM)

She shown remarkable drone images of how the settlements have expanded over time and narrates how the MSF team collaborated with the international Organisation for Migration (IOM), who were given a permission to fly drones over refugee camp, to understand the growing settlement patterns of the Rohingyas to address the issue of displacement.

Professor Kostkova asked whether they have ever used such technology to deliver goods to affected areas to which Jorieke explains:

Yes, our teams have used drones in Papua New Guinea to transport TB sputum samples to a hospital from health centres in remote villages.

Difficult questions regarding drone regulation were asked – unlike the Global North where laws are stricter against drone usage in public spaces. In the Global South – unfortunately, this is not the case. Jorieke agreed that in countries like Malawi there were no strict regulation concerning drones in 2017 when the MSF team, lead by Raphael Brechard, used them for mapping the flooded area. She mentioned that at the time:

…you can become a user without a license”.

She adds the following:

…while there’s less regulations, MSF tries to maximise good-use of drones [not to compromise people’s privacy]. We try to collaborate with government and local institutions and community leaders before we deploy our drone activities. We also make sure to have strong local knowledge and close ties with the community involved to get their participation and acceptance”.

Image 4: Jorieke (left) explaining the advantages and disadvantages of using drones in lower income & low resource settings in the Global South

An interactive panel discussion was held and the floor was opened for the audience to ask interesting questions. Of course, for more interesting details you can watch all live streamed videos on YouTube – remember to hit the like button and subscribe to the channel at UCL IRDR.

Follow us on Twitter @UCL_dPHE & @UCLIRDR

You can follow the Missing maps project and Médecins San Frontières (MSF) on Twitter @TheMissingMaps & @MSF, respectively.

Concerning all photographs used in this blog. All credit goes to the rightful owner and photographer: Professor Ilan Kelman (IRDR, UCL)

UCL IRDR’s dPHE lead a Workshop on Outbreak! Infectious Diseases at the UCL Global Citizenship Programme

By ucfausa, on 6 June 2019

In the first week of June 2019, UCL IRDR’s Centre for Digital Public Health in Emergencies (dPHE) participated in the facilitation of an interdisciplinary workshop, the Global Citizenship Programme Outbreak 2019, to engage in with under- and postgraduate students from UCL and beyond.

Dr Patty Kostkova (Associate Professor) and Dr Caroline Wood (Senior Research Fellow & Coordinator) from dPHE and Dr Shanshan Zhou (IRDR Enterprise and Promotions Officer) kicked-off on day seven’s session by delivering a series of interesting lectures on digital public health. Dr Patty Kostkova spoke about the importance of taking advantage of the digital world we live in, and opportunities of utilising reliable data from social media such as Google, Facebook, Twitter and many more, to use as a form of surveillance for accessing information regarding infectious disease outbreaks and the population’s health in general.

Figure 1: Dr Patty Kostkova delivering a lecture on Digital Public Health at the GCP2019

Dr Caroline Wood and Dr Shanshan Zhou engaged in a discussion with prospective students regarding postgraduate opportunities within UCL IRDR’s dPHE. They disseminated its key aims, achievements and the various research projects that is currently in progress – these ranged from .1) use of m-gamification apps in Nigeria (West Africa) to monitor the behavioural change in the patterns of prescribing antibiotics in Nigeria, and 2.) using mobile phone applications as a surveillance tool for ZIKA infected mosquitoes to predict potential outbreaks in Brazil. They took the opportunity to showcase the postgraduate courses hosted by IRDR and dPHE, and the career prospects in digital public health.

Finally, the team led an interactive session with the students to conduct an outbreak investigation on an infectious illness called ‘Stripy coloured hair’ infection (it’s a weird infectious illness that causes… stripy hair. Apparently, it can only be cured by consuming lemons). The students were split into groups of six and tasked with developing a mobile phone application that can be used as a medium for data collection and, in turn, serve as a tool for surveillance and early warning for preventing the disease. Group 4 (see figure 2) presented their app proposal called “Stripy Lemon” and were selected winners by Dr Kostkova and her team as the best application for preventing ‘Stripy colour hair disease’. Well done Group 4!

Figure 2: Dr Patty Kostkova congratulating Group 4 – who came up with the best concept for developing an app for preventing ‘Stripy coloured hair’ infection

Follow all updates and news from the UCL IRDR dPHE via our Twitter account @UCL_dPHE

PRISMH Workshop & Stakeholders Forum on Resilience of Schools to Multi-Hazard in the Philippines

By Rebekah Yore, on 4 June 2019

Last month, I was very fortunate to be able to participate in the delivery of a two-day workshop on Structural Mitigation and Increasing Resilience of Schools to Multi-Hazards in Manila, Philippines as part of the Philippines Resilience of Schools to Multi-Hazard (PRISMH) project. I joined the UCL EPICentre team in a visit to project collaborators De La Salle University (Manila) and Xavier University (Cagayan de Oro).

The workshop was based around methods, techniques and data used and collected as part of the actual PRISMH investigation, and introduced participants (attended came from academia, government, the private sector) to the most common deficiencies and failures observed in existing school infrastructure across the Philippines. As the Philippines is a multi-hazard environment, these weaknesses were examined in reference to exposed to various types of natural hazards including earthquake, flood and windstorm. Looking at the wide variety of the building typology and unpredictability of hazard intensity, different methods of data collection and exposure analysis were demonstrated in order to prioritise the most vulnerable structures, susceptible to life threatening damage and economic losses.

The physical integrity of buildings is only part of the story however, and the workshop also introduced knowledge and experience around challenges facing early warning systems, the identification, suitability and access to schools as emergency evacuation shelters and resource distribution hubs, as well as designing and implementing evacuation plans. I was there to represent the work and preliminary findings of Dr Joanna Faure Walker and Dr Alexandra Tsioulou, who emphasise the social importance of schools as centres of community, education institutions, and critically when a hazard risk arises, evacuation centres, emergency (and temporary) shelters, and aid distribution centres. My PhD work in the Philippines focusses on early warnings and temporary shelter in the Philippines, and so this was great way of exploring schools that function as shelters in more detail, as well as building relationships among key public, private and academic stakeholders.

The workshop was followed by a Stakeholders Forum first in Manila, and then in Xavier University in the city of Cagayan de Oro (CdeO), where the fieldwork campaign for PRISMH was conducted. This was my favourite part as it was a chance to report on the initial findings of the project and to engage the people at the heart of this research. It was a wonderful example of taking work back to where it originated, and of delivering real foundations on which people can adapt and build tools and resources that can help well beyond their original scope. The attendees included the Mayor of CdeO, officials from the Regional Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council (RDRRMC) and the Philippines Department of Education.

See the Xavier University news article here

About the PRISMH Project

Start: 1st April 2017 / End: 30th Sepember 2019

The PRISMH project, led by Prof Dina D’Ayala, Dr Carmine Galasso and Dr Joanna Faure Walker aims to develop an advanced resilience assessment framework for school infrastructure subjected to multiple natural hazards in the Philippines. The project investigates the effectiveness of buildings retrofit measures and social preparedness measures as means of preventing casualties, reducing economic losses and maintaining functionality of the school infrastructure and its role within the community in the event of natural disasters. In particular the project addresses risks from seismic, wind and flood hazards. The resilience assessment protocol will be used by civil protection and school authorities to improve their preparedness and implementation.

Funding Bodies
British Council (Newton Fund Grant Agreement Institutional Links)
Philippines’s Commission on Higher Education (CHED)

 

#DPH2019: The 9th International Digital Public Health Conference

By Saqar ' M Al Zaabi, on 29 May 2019

Blog post by Dr. Caroline Wood

Call for papers, prizes and early bird registration – now open!

The UCL IRDR Centre for Digital Public Health in Emergencies will host its 9th annual conference on 20-23 November 2019 at the Marseille Chanot Exhibition and Conference Centre, France. We are delighted to announce that we will be collocating this event with the 12th European Public Health Conference; the largest European venue for researchers, practitioners and policymakers working across all aspects of health organised by the European Public Health Association (EUPHA).

Join us in Marseille and you can look forward to a packed programme of plenary panels, workshops, posters and demos, exhibition and unique networking opportunities. We’re offering fantastic discounts on conference registration until 1st September 2019 – don’t miss out!

The areas of interest include, but are not limited to:

  • Technology support: essential public health operations (EPHO)
  • Public health interventions and disaster risk reduction (DRR) using mobile technologies
  • Serious games and digital storytelling
  • Behaviour change
  • Citizens science, participatory surveillance and crowdsourcing
  • IoT/sensors
  • Big data modelling and machine learning
  • Data science
  • Preparedness and response to emergencies
  • Infectious diseases and public health education
  • Community engagement
  • Infection control and antimicrobial stewardship
  • Individual vaccination passports

Be part of the programme – we are inviting submissions for oral presentations, posters and demos as part of our main track. Deadline: May 25th 2019

Young Researchers Forum – at the start of your career? Don’t miss this opportunity to present your work in a friendly environment with support from our experienced mentoring panel. We run the Young Researchers Forum as a pre-conference (this year on November 20th) and are inviting submissions for both oral, and poster presentations. Deadline: June 25th 2019

Get recognised for your innovation – each year we host the DPH Innovation Prize giving innovators the chance to pitch for prizes in recognition of their partnerships with business and cutting-edge digital ideas. Deadline: 1st July 2019

Showcase your business – be visible to 2,000+ influential opinion-leaders, academics, policymakers and innovators at the core of digital public health. Exhibition and partnership opportunities available now

The International Digital Public Health Conference series is a world leading annual interdisciplinary event on research and innovation in digital health. The event fosters research and innovation driven by real world needs, aiming to improve public health through the application of novel technology at the personal, community and global levels. Unique in bringing together audiences from Public Health, Computer & Data Science, MedTech industry and NGOs, DPH enables cross-fertilization of research and innovation in digital public health, offering knowledge exchange and networking opportunities.

In 2018, we successfully gained Agency for Public Health Education Accreditation (APHEA) Continuing Training and Educational Event (CTEE) accreditation for DPH which means Public Health professionals can claim 20 Continuing Professional Development (CPD) points for attending.

To stay up-to-date with event news and the programme launch, follow the dPHE Twitter account @UCL_dPHE or the hashtag: #DPH2019. Visit the DPH 2019 website at: www.acm-digitalhealth.org

 

About the UCL Centre for Digital Public Health in Emergencies

Recent health emergencies – including the SARS, Zika and Ebola outbreaks, and the Haiti and Nepal earthquakes – have unnecessarily taken thousands lives and cost the global economy billions. These events have shown the limits of current health systems’ capacity and communities’ resilience to respond to emergencies at local, national and international levels.

The UCL IRDR Centre for Digital Public Health in Emergencies brings together experts from UCL and external stakeholders to lead on interdisciplinary research, training and policy advice to improve global public health through use of digital technologies and data systems

Contact:  irdr.dphe@ucl.ac.uk

Office location:  Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction, Wilkins South Wing – 2nd Floor, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT

@UCL_dPHE

 

Can you write about your research using the 1,000 most common words in the English language?

By Joanna P Faure Walker, on 10 May 2019

At the IRDR Spring Academy, I set each member of the IRDR the challenge of explaining their research using only the 1,000 most commonly used words in the English language (taken from this website).  We were allowed the odd exception for a few essential keywords (in my case “earthquake” and “fault”). We had about ten minutes to do this. Below we share some of our attempts. Would you like to try the same exercise?

IRDR Spring Academy 2019

Mohamed Alwahedi:

Some scientists think that all earthquakes happen in the same way, and by the same reason. That is called the self-similarity theory. I am going to test that theory.

David Alexander:

My latest research is on a sunken ship that is full of thousands of live bombs. The work looks at how the risk has been managed and what might happen to the wreck. There are several reasons why the ship might explode. Unfortunately, for 75 years, nothing has been done to reduce the risk, which has grown as the wreck has become older. The British Government has failed to create a clear picture of the danger posed by the ship. Hence, in terms of details, the risk is poorly known. An explosion could cause a terrible disaster. It is time to act, defuse the bombs and clear away the ship, but the options are limited by the danger.

Lucy Buck:

I study how a tsunami changes the land after the water has gone and what this means for the people who live there.

Joanna Faure Walker:

What makes an earthquake occur when and where it does? Scientists seek to answer this question using many different methods. My current work has two main approaches. First, if we collect more field data can we improve risk knowledge? Second, how much more can we learn when we measure details of fault structures? Through my work we have learnt more about how faults join and grow, where earthquakes occur and why, and what next steps need to be taken to help us reduce risk from earthquakes.

Jessica Field:

I have been researching in archives (which is a place where old documents are kept) in Delhi to better understand how the Indian government managed aid during emergencies like floods, earthquakes and conflicts during the 1940s-1960s.

Nathanael Harwood:

Not all ‘Global Warming’ has an equal impact across the Globe; the Arctic in particular has warmed at twice the rate of the rest of the globe, causing the region to be warmer and moister than it should be according to the last half-century of records.  At the same time weather extremes, including hot and cold waves that stick around for longer, have become a common occurrence further south of the Arctic where billions of people live in the warmer ‘midlatitudes’.  As Londoners, that includes us.  Normal weather conditions, or at least weather we would expect given the record, rely on a stable temperature and pressure difference between the Arctic and the midlatitudes which drives the wind and blows weather patterns like storms away at a reasonable pace.  But when these differences are changed, and the Arctic warms at a rate never seen before, it seems obvious that wind patterns and the atmosphere as a whole could be disturbed, made wavier and slower, or even blocked.

Despite this, we still don’t know the specific details on how the Arctic is impacting our weather, or the main driver of our weather called the ‘Jet Stream’, which blows above us at about the height you would take a jet plane at.  Computer models have given a wide range of results, and traditional techniques to look at climate records have failed to provide any robust answers.  This project uses ‘Bayesian Networks’, a way of considering how different things relate to each other in a large network, to look at how the Arctic region fits into relationships between the atmosphere and different parts of the world.  These large-scale disturbances of the jet stream, wind and weather are a crucial part of the climate change puzzle because they can cause devastating cold conditions, like on the US East Coast, unbearable heat waves across parts of Europe, as well as floods and droughts.  If we want to understand what the future holds for us in terms of extreme weather, we need to understand the relationships between these different drivers so that we can predict and better prepare for a future with a very warm Arctic.

Ilan Kelman:

There is a lot of talk that people must move because the climate is changing. Counting these numbers of people is very difficult and cannot really be done. People move for many reasons and do not always make decisions using long times. It is hard to pick only one factor.

Claudia Sgambato:

Earthquakes are some of the most dangerous natural events, causing many deaths and damage. It is important to contribute to the knowledge of when and where the next earthquakes will occur, and how destructive they can be. However, it is not an easy task: at present there is no way to predict an earthquake. My research addresses this problem, by studying where the structures responsible for producing earthquakes, called faults, are, and how often they rupture. I also study the geometry of the faults, in other words their changes in shape, because these may have an important role in the seismic hazard, causing a higher rate of deformation.

Mark Shortt:

Alone, I travelled to the north to research sea ice. It was very cold with a lot of wind, but with the help of other scientists I got some strength values. This will be important for oil and gas companies.

Omar Velazquez Ortiz:

I am trying to understand and improve the different escape ways that structures’ occupants can use under a shaking event, considering early warnings

Rory Walshe:

How does the history of risk from major cyclones effect society and culture for institutions and individuals and how can we research history to understand response.

Caroline Wood:

International professional instructions are available to help doctors give drugs to stop disease. Doctors can find it difficult to use these instructions in their practice, particularly for operations. Our research designs digital decision resources (apps) to help improve knowledge and educate doctors about the correct drugs to give.

Punam Yadav:

My recent research, which focusses on political participation of women and their agency, examines the life experiences of women who have been elected at the local government. The aim of this research is to examine the impact of reservation on the everyday life of these women politicians.

I carried out 25 interviews with women politicians and 5 interviews with male politicians. Despite increase in women’s representation in politics in Nepal, these women politicians talked about how difficult it was for them to work in a male dominated environment. They also spoke about opportunities their new roles had brought for them. They have access to new space and earned more respect due to their new roles.

Launch event for the UCL IRDR Centre for Digital Public Health in Emergencies (dPHE)

By Saqar ' M Al Zaabi, on 8 November 2018

Blog post by Dr. Caroline Wood

The UCL Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction held an evening event on Thursday 1st November 2018 to celebrate the launch of its newest transdisciplinary venture: the UCL IRDR Centre for Digital Public Health in Emergencies (dPHE). The event was attended by more than 120 people, including UCL senior managements, academics, researchers, students, industry specialists, entrepreneurs and policymakers from across a broad range of sectors and specialisms.

The evening started with a welcome address by Professor David Price (UCL Vice Provost for Research) outlining UCL’s Grand Challenges concept of bringing together academic expertise across disciplines to address the issues facing the society and the planet. Professor Peter Sammonds (Director of the UCL Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction) gave an overview of the IRDR vision and highlighted how the new Centre forms a vital part of the UCL Faculty for Maths and Physical Sciences strategic 5-year development plan.

The Keynote Speaker Professor Virginia Murray (Head of Global Disaster Risk Reduction, Public Health England) kicked off the evening talks with an eye-opening keynote on global response to disasters and emergencies and the potential for science and digital health technologies to contribute. She illustrated her talk with reference to the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (2015-2030); a tool developed to structure response and protect nations when disasters occur, and stressed the importance of improving accessibility and availability to key data.

The evening continued with Dr. Patty Kostkova (Director of the UCL IRDR Centre for Digital Public Health in Emergencies) outlining the history and vision of the Centre. She emphasised the Centre’s central mission to break down the limits of current health care systems’ capacity and communities’ resilience to improving health and wellbeing at national and international levels. A key part of the Centre’s research agenda will be to explore how use of digital technologies and improving access to data can build the ‘bridge’ between efficient emergency response, emergency activities and improved healthcare systems capacity and routine surveillance. The Centre will also seek to change the current dynamic of knowledge transfer and exchange between academia and policy, directly responding to the main global public health challenges identified by policy but also proactively bringing challenges to policy agendas.

With representation spanning five UCL faculties, involving multiple disciplines and chaired by Professor Ibrahim Abubakar (Director of the UCL Institute for Global Health, Faculty of Population Health Sciences), a panel then discussed the challenges faced by the global public health and potential ways in which digital technologies and community engagement could seek to address them. Professor Julio Davila (UCL Development Planning Unit, Faculty of the Built Environment) proposed that key challenges stem from the world’s continuing ambition to urbanise and from rapid increases in urban sprawl on a global level. He argued that improving infrastructure for capacity building is therefore crucial to efficient global public health response to disasters and emergencies.

Professor Kate Jones (UCL Centre for Biodiversity and Environmental Research, Faculty of Life Sciences) stressed that we need to better realise the state of our global ecosystems and the decreasing environmental diversity. Professor Jones proposed that digital technologies incorporating real-time prediction and big data would enable us to more fully understand links between ecosystem decline and human health. Major challenges surrounding data sharing, ownership and translation between sectors, organisations and disciplines were raised as significant barriers to more efficient ways of working by Professor Muki Haklay (UCL Extreme Citizen Science, Faculty of Social and Historical Sciences) and Dr. Patty Kostkova (UCL IRDR dPHE) stressing the opportunity to enhance big data-driven predictive disease analytics with routine surveillance data collected via mobile technology. Professor Haklay posited that citizen science has a large role to play in ensuring provision of digital tools direct to communities to improve data collection and guide usage of data for better public health response.

Professor Abubakar brought the panel to a close by stressing that it would be a crime not to exploit opportunities for addressing global public health using innovative digital technologies – especially given their growing global penetration, even in low to middle income countries (LMIC). He highlighted the importance of the IRDR Centre for dPHE’s role in bringing different disciplines and sectors together to address the bigger public health challenges and assess how to effectively drive innovation to global change. The role of human computer interaction science, behavioural science and education were specifically mentioned as being key disciplines in helping global public health to better understand how people interact with digital technologies and addressing how best to encourage uptake in communities. Initiatives expanding dPHE to more UCL Faculties beyond the core five represented at the panel were agreed at the event.

Professor David Lomas (UCL Vice Provost for Health) gave the closing address for the event reiterating cross Faculty and the UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences’ (SLMS) support for the new Centre and its importance in maintaining UCL’s role as a leader in improving global public health. A celebratory drinks and networking event showcasing several of the Centre’s collaborative research projects then took place in the Roberts Building Foyer.

Further coverage of the event can be accessed via the dPHE Twitter account @UCL_dPHE or via the hashtag: #dPHELaunch. Recording of the event including the panel discussion will be available to view week beginning Nov 19th. Images with thanks to Dr. Ilan Kelman.

 

About the UCL Centre for Digital Public Health in Emergencies

The UCL IRDR Centre for Digital Public Health in Emergencies brings together experts from UCL and external stakeholders to lead on interdisciplinary research, training and policy advice to improve global public health through use of digital technologies and data systems.

Recent health emergencies – including the SARS, Zika and Ebola outbreaks, and the Haiti and Nepal earthquakes – have unnecessarily taken thousands lives and cost the global economy billions. These events have shown the limits of current health systems’ capacity and communities resilience to respond to emergencies at local, national and international levels.

The dPHE seeks to:

  • Strengthen response to public health challenges and emergencies
  • Lead cutting-edge research into mobile technologies, data science and policy
  • Harness expertise across sectors to strengthen national and international collaboration
  • Cultivate the next generation of experts through evidence-based teaching and training

Established in 2018 as part of the UCL Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences five-year strategic plan, the vision is to develop the dPHE into a renowned and world-leading Centre in digital public health in emergencies to improve global capacity, preparedness and response to health emergencies.

Contact:  irdr.dphe@ucl.ac.uk

Office location:  Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction, Wilkins South Wing – 2nd Floor, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT

@UCL_dPHE

Disaster Science is one of five key themes for partnership between UCL and Tohoku University

By Joanna P Faure Walker, on 21 October 2018

UCL and Tohoku University signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Thursday 11th October 2018 as part of the kickoff partnership event. President Arthur and President Ohno stated their commitment to continuing research exchange, following the agreement of the previous five years.

President Arthur and President Ohno sign memorandum of understanding Photo source: https://www.tohoku.ac.jp/japanese/2018/10/news20181018-02.html

Workshops for five key themes were held on the 11th and 12th October as part of the event that saw 50 delegates come to UCL from Tohoku University. The five themes were disaster science, data science, neuroscience, higher education and material science and spintronics.

The disaster science delegation (From left to right) Prof. Shinichi Kuriyama Dr Katerina Stavrianaki Dr Ilan Kelman Ms Anna Shinka Dr Tiziana Rossetto Dr Joanan Faure Walker Dr David Robinson Assist. Prof. Shuji Seto Prof Maureen Fordham Ms Miwako Kitamura Prof David Alexander Assoc. Prof. Anawat Suppasri

The disaster science delegation comprised representatives from UCL IRDR, Tohoku University IRIDes (International Research Institute for Disaster Science), and UCL EPICentre. The workshop has helped form new collaboration opportunities building on the existing relationship between these research institutions. Our collaboration cincludes joint publications in earthquake stress transfer (e.g. Mildon et al., 2016), disaster fatalities (Suppasri et al., 2016), and temporary housing (e.g. Naylor et al., 2018). We look forward to the next five years of working with all our colleagues at IRIDeS to enhance the field of disaster science.

Discussions during the disaster science workshop Photo source: https://www.tohoku.ac.jp/japanese/2018/10/news20181018-02.html

The disaster science workshop included the following talks, which prompted discussions of further questions we would like to research together:

  • Assist. Prof. Shuji Seto (IRIDeS)
    • New Research Project on the Fatality Process in the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake for Survival Study from Tsunami Disaster
  • Dr Ilan Kelman (UCL IRDR)
    • Disaster, Health, and Islands
  • Prof. Shinichi Kuriyama (IRIDeS)
    • Challenge of Public Health to Disaster – Using Public Health Approach and Artificial Intelligence Techniques
  • Prof Maureen Fordman (UCL IRDR)
    • Gender and Disasters
  • Ms Miwako Kitamura (IRIDeS)
    • Gender problems as seen from the oral history of the bereaved families of the deceased Tsunami in Otsuchi Town, during the Great East Japan Earthquake
  • Ms Anna Shinka (IRIDeS)
    • A questionnaire study on disaster folklore and evacuation behavior for human casualty reduction – Case of Kesennnuma City, Miyagi Prefecture.
  • Prof Tiziana Rossetto (UCL EPICentre)
    • Building response under sequential earthquakes and tsunami
  • Assoc. Prof. Anawat Suppasri (IRIDeS)
    • Building damage assessment considering lateral resistance and loss estimation using an economic model “Input-Output table”
  • Prof David Alexander (UCL IRDR)
    • A framework for Cascading Disasters
  • Dr Joanna Faure Walker (UCL IRDR)
    • Disaster Warning, Evacuation and Shelter

NHK, the largest broadcaster in Japan, reported the workshop with a focus on Miwako Kitamura and the UCL Gender and Disaster Centre:  NHK report (in Japanese)