GEO Health Community of Practice Updates

Important note: Update information is regularly sent out through the GEO Health Community of Practice list-serv. To visit the official GEO Health Community of Practice website follow this link. To sign up for the list-serv click here.

Updates from the GEO Health CoP

Scientific Articles

One Health
- UN: Strengthen ‘One Health approach’ to prevent future pandemics – WHO chief
  While the concept of One Health – where multiple sectors communicate and work together to achieve better public health outcomes – may have once seemed simple, “it is no longer”, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. “We can only prevent future pandemics with an integrated One Health approach to public health, animal health and the environment we share. Now is the time to take our partnership to a new level”, he underscored.
- There is also increasing recognition that a One Health approach to food systems is also important and chronic food insecurity and/or distrust of intensively produced food are key drivers of risky practices. If you’ve not seen this, it might be of interest: https://www.globalhungerindex.org/issues-in-focus/2020.html.
- Infection Ecology & Epidemiology: Rethinking One Health approach in the challenging era of COVID-19 pandemic and natural disasters (by Hajime Kanamori, Hiroaki Baba, and David Weber).
- One Health journal: The state of One Health research across disciplines and sectors – a bibliometric analysis
Air Quality
- Science Alert: There’s a Link Between Air Pollution And Irreversible Vision Loss, Study Reveals.
- US Environmental Protection Agency: Technical Approaches for the Sensor Data on the AirNow Fire and Smoke Map.
- Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association: Methods, availability, and applications of PM2.5 exposure estimates derived from ground measurements, satellite, and atmospheric models.
- Health Effects Institute/Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation’s Global Burden of Disease project: State of Global Air 2020 Report.
- Sustainable Cities and Society: Surface and Satellite Observations of Air Pollution in India during COVID-19 Lockdown: Implication to Air Quality. (by Yogesh Sathe, Pawan Gupta, Moqtik Bawase, Lok Lamsal, Falguni Patadia, Sukrut Thipse).
- Science: Wildfire Smoke, A Potential Infectious Agent (By Leda Kobziar and George Thompson III).
- EOS: Advances in Satellite Data for Wildfire Smoke Forecasting.
Climate
- Multi-hazard climate risk projections for the United States (by Binita and colleagues, 2020).
COVID-19
- World Meteorological Organization: First Report of the WMO COVID-19 Task Team: Review on Meteorological and Air Quality Factors Affecting the COVID-19 Pandemic (WMO-No. 1262)
- Washington Post: Warmer weather by itself won’t curtail the spread of COVID-19, expert panel finds
- Communications Biology: Estimating and explaining the spread of COVID-19 at the county level in the USA (by Anthony Ives and Claudio Bozzuto).
Earth Observation
- GEO Community Blog: Small Work Groups of the GEO Health Community of Practice (by John Haynes, Juli Trtanj, and Helena Chapman).
- The Earth Observer (November-December 2020): Leveraging Science to Advance Society: The 2020 PACE Applications Workshop (by Erin Urquhart and JoelScott).
- EOS: Assessing Social Equity in Disasters.
- Proto Publication of the Massachusetts General Hospital, Dispatches from the Frontiers of Medicine: Eyes in the Sky. Satellite data can be used to assess the health impact of dust storms and the spread of mosquito-borne diseases. Additional applications could be on the horizon.
Global Health
- Hess J, Boodram L, Paz S, Stewart-Ibarra AM, Wasserheit JN, Lowe R. 2020. Strengthening the Global Health Response to Climate Change and Infectious Disease Threats. BMJ 371:m3081. https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m3081.
Heat
- EOS: Dangerous Heat, Unequal Consequences.
- US Geological Survey: Mapping Urban Heat Islands Leads NYC Council Data Team to Landsat.
- Science Magazine: Special section on Keeping Cool in a Warming World.
Infectious Diseases
- Caldwell JM, LaBeaud AD, Lambin EF, Stewart-Ibarra AM, Anyamba A, Borbor-Cordova MJ, Damoah R, Gross-Soyster E, Krystosik, Mutuku F, Ndenga B, Beltran-Ayala E, Mejia R, Endy TP, Heras Heras F, Ryan SJ, Shah M, Sippy R, Suner G, Mordecai EA. 2021. Climate explains geographic and temporal variation in mosquito-borne disease dynamics on two continents. Nature Communications 12: 1233. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-21496-7.
- Dungu, B., Anyamba, A. (2021) Rift Valley fever and the challenges of remaining fully prepared for this periodic emergency. OIE Panorama Bulletin. https://oiebulletin.com/?panorama=03-2-2020-2_rvf
NASA
- NASA Web Feature: Paraguay’s First Satellite Deployed From the International Space Station.
- NASA HARVEST: Please review archived HARVEST Newsletters and subscribe to the listserv.
ESA
- European Space Agency: Space in response to COVID-19.
Australia: Ad astra vita project blog.

Updates from the GEO Health CoP

Past (Recorded) Workshops and Webinars

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine: Global Change Research Needs and Opportunities for 2022-2031: This report identifies critical climate change risks, research needed to support decision making relevant to managing these risks, and opportunities for the USGCRP’s participating agencies and other partners to advance these research priorities over the next decade. You can also view the archived Global Change Research Needs and Opportunities for 2022-2031: Report Release Webinar (March 16, 2021).
American Geophysical Union: Archived Webinars are available on the AGU Webinar YouTube channel.
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine: The Interplay Between Environmental Exposures and Mental Health Outcomes – A Workshop from February 2-3, 2021.