Understanding zoonotic disease risk using dynamic ecological models
Lead Research Organisation:
University College London
Department Name: Genetics Evolution and Environment
Abstract
The natural world is expected to undergo a significant transformation over the next century, driven by climate change, habitat destruction, human population increase and greater globalisation. Many diseases, such as Ebola, Plague and Anthrax, are caught when people come into contact with wild animals and these diseases are called 'zoonoses'. Processes within the natural and human world dictate where the species that carry zoonoses are currently found, and any changes to these underlying processes will lead to differences in where disease-carrying species can live, and therefore, the locations where people can catch diseases from them. I will create the first, comprehensive but general model of the ecology and epidemiology of a set of high priority African zoonoses, focusing on those diseases that have a major impact on the livelihoods of poor and vulnerable human communities. My modelling approach will capture the seasonal and annual differences to the environmental conditions that host species experience and then determine the different physical routes by which species can then move around the globe to respond to environmental change. After testing against real disease case data, my modelling framework will, for the first time, allow researchers and policy makers to simultaneously aim to minimise the number of people who can contract a wide set of very different zoonoses, and then predict how climate and land-use change will impact these policy decisions in the future. My work has the potential to reduce disease burden and consequently levels of human suffering across Africa in the future.
Technical Summary
The natural world is expected to undergo a significant transformation over the next century, driven by climate change, habitat destruction, human population increases and greater globalisation. Many animal-borne or zoonotic human diseases (e.g. Ebola, Plague, Anthrax) are caught from non-domesticated, wild species and these host species will likely alter their spatial distribution and behaviour in response to environmental change. To examine how this process will impact human zoonotic diseases, I will first create a dynamic, species distribution model that incorporates the latest, fine-scale remote-sensed data, to predict the real-time environmental suitability for disease-carrying host species. On these suitability surfaces, I will run mechanistic models of host species population dynamics, which I can use to assess the role of seasonal and annual changes to the environment and to better predict host abundance and, subsequently, host-human contact rates. I will then create two environmentally-responsive movement networks, the first consisting of major animal migrations and the second of human transportation methods, which I can then apply to historical and future environments to model zoonotic disease spread and animal invasions. I will then integrate these major work threads into a global, dynamic, 'whole systems' modelling framework of zoonotic diseases, containing both a dynamic ecological model component and a previously developed, empirically-based model of human population density, poverty and behaviour. This framework, when validated against empirical animal occurrence and disease case data, will be allowed to run on a set of high priority zoonoses in Africa to test policy interventions in present day conditions and then test how different drivers of expected future global change will impact the efficacy of these interventions.
Publications
Blackburn T
(2018)
Bergmann's rule in alien birds
in Ecography
Dyer EE
(2017)
The Global Distribution and Drivers of Alien Bird Species Richness.
in PLoS biology
Dyer EE
(2017)
The global avian invasions atlas, a database of alien bird distributions worldwide.
in Scientific data
Franklinos LHV
(2019)
The effect of global change on mosquito-borne disease.
in The Lancet. Infectious diseases
Gibb R
(2017)
Understanding the cryptic nature of Lassa fever in West Africa.
in Pathogens and global health
Lo Iacono G
(2018)
Environmental limits of Rift Valley fever revealed using ecoepidemiological mechanistic models.
in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Redding DW
(2021)
Geographical drivers and climate-linked dynamics of Lassa fever in Nigeria.
in Nature communications
Redding DW
(2019)
Impacts of environmental and socio-economic factors on emergence and epidemic potential of Ebola in Africa.
in Nature communications
Redding DW
(2017)
Evaluating Bayesian spatial methods for modelling species distributions with clumped and restricted occurrence data.
in PloS one
Redding DW
(2019)
Location-level processes drive the establishment of alien bird populations worldwide.
in Nature
Description | Ongoing interaction with Nigerian Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) on Lassa fever epidemiology and 2019 outbreak forecast |
Geographic Reach | Africa |
Policy Influence Type | Implementation circular/rapid advice/letter to e.g. Ministry of Health |
Description | Ongoing interaction with World Health Organisation (WHO) on epidemic forecasting for Ebola and other zoonoses (WHO INSURE project) |
Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
Policy Influence Type | Membership of a guideline committee |
Description | Implementing Planetary Health |
Amount | £10,609 (GBP) |
Funding ID | 204841/Z/16/Z |
Organisation | Wellcome Trust |
Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 01/2018 |
End | 01/2020 |
Description | Understanding the impact of global change on animal-borne diseases |
Amount | £679,929 (GBP) |
Funding ID | 220179/Z/20/Z |
Organisation | Wellcome Trust |
Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 11/2021 |
End | 11/2025 |
Description | Forecasting Lassa Fever Dynamics |
Organisation | Nigeria Centre for Disease Control |
Country | Nigeria |
Sector | Public |
PI Contribution | Together with the NCDC we are creating systems to forecast Lassa Fever disease dynamics across Nigeria. The NCDC have provided sole access of their case data for this collaboration and we are currently working with them to create an online forecast dashboard for local epidemiologists to use. |
Collaborator Contribution | I have create a forecast models and written up a publication with all members. |
Impact | Redding DW, Gibb R, Dan-Nwafor CC, Ilori EA, Usman YR, Saliu OH, Michael AO, Akanimo I, Ipadeola OB, Enright L, Donnelly CA, Abubakar I, Jones KE, Ihekweazu C. Spatiotemporal analysis of systematic surveillance data enables climate-based forecasting of Lassa fever. Nature Communications (in revision - manuscript available on request) |
Start Year | 2017 |
Description | Forecasting Lassa Fever Dynamics |
Organisation | University College London |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | Together with the NCDC we are creating systems to forecast Lassa Fever disease dynamics across Nigeria. The NCDC have provided sole access of their case data for this collaboration and we are currently working with them to create an online forecast dashboard for local epidemiologists to use. |
Collaborator Contribution | I have create a forecast models and written up a publication with all members. |
Impact | Redding DW, Gibb R, Dan-Nwafor CC, Ilori EA, Usman YR, Saliu OH, Michael AO, Akanimo I, Ipadeola OB, Enright L, Donnelly CA, Abubakar I, Jones KE, Ihekweazu C. Spatiotemporal analysis of systematic surveillance data enables climate-based forecasting of Lassa fever. Nature Communications (in revision - manuscript available on request) |
Start Year | 2017 |
Description | Working group on Lassa Fever |
Organisation | Penn State University |
Country | United States |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | Along with Sagan Friant (Penn State) and Lina Moses (Tulane) I have created a working group aiming to develop interdisciplinary science in zoonotic disease research. We have jointly written and submitted a NSF grant application for a 5 year project collecting data from across the entire transmission cycle, which represents a significant advancement in this area. |
Collaborator Contribution | I have co-written two grant applications. |
Impact | NSF EEID grant application (2019) - unsuccessful. Sagan Friant (Anthropology), Lina Moses (Public Health), David Redding (Disease ecology). NSF EEID grant application (2020) - pending. Sagan Friant (Anthropology), Lina Moses (Public Health), David Redding (Disease ecology). |
Start Year | 2018 |
Description | Working group on Lassa Fever |
Organisation | Tulane University |
Country | United States |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | Along with Sagan Friant (Penn State) and Lina Moses (Tulane) I have created a working group aiming to develop interdisciplinary science in zoonotic disease research. We have jointly written and submitted a NSF grant application for a 5 year project collecting data from across the entire transmission cycle, which represents a significant advancement in this area. |
Collaborator Contribution | I have co-written two grant applications. |
Impact | NSF EEID grant application (2019) - unsuccessful. Sagan Friant (Anthropology), Lina Moses (Public Health), David Redding (Disease ecology). NSF EEID grant application (2020) - pending. Sagan Friant (Anthropology), Lina Moses (Public Health), David Redding (Disease ecology). |
Start Year | 2018 |
Description | Briefing for the Congo Ebola response team |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | During the 2018 DRC Ebola Response Modelling Coordination group to brief them on the relationships between Ebola spread and ecological dynamics. I gave a 45 minute presentation and took questions as part of this. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
URL | https://journals.plos.org/plosntds/article?id=10.1371/journal.pntd.0008158 |
Description | Pint of Science Festival |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | I gave a public engagement talk about the work that I am doing to an general public audience of about 50-60 as part of the Pint of Science festival. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
URL | https://pintofscience.co.uk/ |