Lunch @UCSF with Hugh Sturrock – Predicting disease outbreaks with Google Earth

Lunch @UCSF with Hugh Sturrock – Predicting disease outbreaks with Google Earth

Using data on Google Earth Engine, Hugh Sturrock is working to create an online platform that health workers around the world can use to predict where malaria is likely to be transmitted. The goal is to enable resource poor countries to wage more targeted and effective campaigns against the mosquito-borne disease, which kills 600,000 people a year, most of them children.

Google Earth Engine brings together the world’s satellite imagery — trillions of scientific measurements dating back almost 40 years — and makes it available online with tools for scientists, independent researchers and nations to mine this massive warehouse of data to detect changes, map trends and quantify differences on Earth’s surface.

With the malaria prediction platform, which is being piloted in Swaziland, local health workers will be able to upload their own data on where and when malaria cases have been occurring and combine it with real-time satellite data on weather and other environmental conditions within Earth Engine to pinpoint where new cases are most likely to occur. That way, they can spray insecticide, distribute bed nets or give antimalarial drugs just to the people who still need them, instead of blanketing the entire country.

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