CORDIA CHU AND TUAN PHAM |
The Asia-Pacific region is highly vulnerable to climate-sensitive infectious diseases (CSIDs), including vector-borne illnesses such as dengue, malaria, and Japanese encephalitis, as well as water-borne diseases like cholera and leptospirosis. Rising temperatures, shifting rainfall patterns, and extreme weather events are accelerating the spread of these diseases, putting millions at risk. Countries such as Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Papua New Guinea are already experiencing significant outbreaks exacerbated by climate change.
Digital prediction tools offer a powerful means to combat these threats by providing early warning systems that allow for proactive intervention. However, the challenge remains: how can these tools be effectively integrated into routine public health surveillance and response systems?
A framework for sustainable adoption: The 3-U Approach
To ensure these tools are not just developed but also widely adopted and used effectively, we propose a 3-U research framework: ensuring tools are useful, usable, and used.
1. Making the tools useful
A prediction tool is only effective if it provides highly accurate forecasts with sufficient lead time to enable proactive public health measures. To ensure usefulness:
- High-quality data: The tool should be based on long-term, high-quality datasets, including disease incidence, climate data (such as temperature and rainfall), and other predictors like population density and land cover. In many Asia-Pacific countries, where data collection infrastructure varies, collaboration with local data providers is crucial.
- Model accuracy and reliability: Spatiotemporal models using Bayesian frameworks can provide probabilistic outcomes that help public health officials make informed decisions. Machine learning methods, while promising, must be adapted to incorporate uncertainty estimates.
- Early warnings for effective action: The tool should offer predictions far enough in advance to allow authorities to deploy interventions, such as mosquito control measures for dengue outbreaks or improved water sanitation for cholera prevention.
2. Making the tools usable
Even the most accurate tool is ineffective if public health professionals cannot easily use it. Ensuring usability involves:
- User-centric design: Digital interfaces should be intuitive, accessible, and available in multiple languages, including those spoken in vulnerable Asia-Pacific nations.
- Training and capacity building: Workshops and online training modules can equip health workers with the necessary skills to interpret and act on predictions.
- Co-creation with end-users: Engaging public health departments, epidemiologists, and community health workers in the development process ensures the tool aligns with local needs and capacities.
3. Ensuring the tools are used
Sustainability is key to long-term impact. Strategies to promote continued use include:
- Integration into national health systems: Ministries of Health in countries like Thailand, Malaysia, and Fiji should embed these tools within existing disease surveillance frameworks.
- Demonstrating cost-effectiveness: Policymakers need compelling evidence that these tools reduce disease burden and healthcare costs. Cost-effectiveness analyses comparing intervention costs with averted hospitalisations and deaths can support funding decisions.
- Open-source accessibility: Making tools and datasets publicly available ensures they can be adapted for different settings, particularly in low-resource countries.
Moving forward: Strengthening climate resilience in the Asia-Pacific
The Asia-Pacific region, with its diverse climate conditions and public health challenges, urgently needs robust digital solutions to mitigate the growing risks of climate-sensitive diseases. By ensuring these tools are useful, usable, and used, governments, researchers, and public health practitioners can work together to build climate resilience and protect vulnerable populations. Investing in early warning systems today will help prevent devastating disease outbreaks tomorrow.
Professor Cordia Chu AM, Director and Dr Tuan Pham, Research and Engagement Fellow of the Centre for Environment and Population Health, are members of the Griffith Asia Institute.
This article is a synopsis of the journal article: Phung, D, Colón-González, FJ, Weinberger, DM. Bui, V, Nghiem, S, Chu, C, Phung, H, Vu, NS, Doan, Q-V, Hashizume, M, Lau, CL, Reid, S, Phan, LT, Tran, DN, Pham, CT, Do, KQ and Dubrow, R. Advancing adoptability and sustainability of digital prediction tools for climate-sensitive infectious disease prevention and control. Nature Communications 16, 1644 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-56826-6
