HEALTHY FUTURES Annual Meeting – Salzburg

Z_GIS hosted the last HEALTHY FUTURES Annual meeting from September 9 -10 at the Natural Science Faculty in Salzburg. The FP7 funded research project aims to develop a disease risk mapping system for three water-related, high-impact VBDs (malaria, Rift Valley fever and schistosomiasis) in eastern Africa, taking into account environmental/climatic trends and changes in socio-economic conditions to predict future risk. The project is scheduled to finish by the end of this year.

During the meeting the consortium members – ranging from European, African and Asian based universities – monitored their progress and exchanged on new findings gained in the HEALTHY FUTURES project. A final stakeholder workshop at the end of November 2014 will conclude the project and present the project's findings to a wider audience.

Z_GIS is involved in a variety of activities such as the development of an adapted conceptual risk and vulnerability framework applicable in the context of vector-borne diseases and climate change, mapping vulnerability hot spots for Malaria, Schistosomiasis and Rift Valley Fever in Eastern Africa and the development of an innovative web-based decision support system and metadataportal.