healthcare technology

The past several decades have seen an alarming spike in communicable disease outbreaks worldwide. Given a confluence of host, virologic, environmental, and human factors, experts agree that the next pandemic could already be on the horizon.

 

 

In a globalized world, changes in how people use land and interact with their ecosystems—such as rapid deforestation and agricultural expansion—have resulted in humans and animals coming into more frequent and intense contact with one another, increasing opportunities for what is known as "zoonotic disease spillover."

 

 

In the past few years alone, numerous disease outbreaks have had suspected or confirmed zoonotic origin, including mpox (formerly known as monkeypox), Ebola virus disease, dengue fever, and COVID-19.

 

Experts also recognize the need to prepare for another possible Disease X, a term used to describe a currently unknown pathogen with pandemic potential.

 

To direct resources toward the most high-consequence pathogens, it is paramount that leaders have an accurate concept of pandemic risk—for individual viruses as well as viral families. Several institutions are developing disease rankings at national and global levels, including the Priority Zoonotic Diseases Lists facilitated by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Research and Development (R&D) Blueprint created by the World Health Organization. 

 

The original SpillOver risk ranking framework (SpillOver 1.0), an open-source webtool launched by researchers at the University of California, Davis One Health Institute, estimated the relative spillover potential of wildlife-origin viruses to humans based on a series of host, viral, and environmental risk factors determined via expert opinion and scientific evidence. 

 

Its next iteration, SpillOvers 2.0, has rebranded to better describe the diversity and frequency of virus spillovers to people. The new platform uses a One Health approach, which recognizes the interdependence of human, animal, and environmental health. It will expand to include domestic animal and vector-borne viruses and assess pandemic risk rather than just spillover risk for wildlife viruses.

 

 

 

COVID-19 is impacting people worldwide and is currently a leading cause of death in many countries. Underlying factors, including Social Determinants of Health (SDoH), could contribute to these statistics. Our prior work has explored associations between SDoH and several adverse health outcomes (eg, asthma and obesity). Our findings reinforce the emerging consensus that SDoH factors should be considered when implementing intelligent public health surveillance solutions to inform public health policies and interventions.

Objective: This study sought to redefine the Healthy People 2030’s SDoH taxonomy to accommodate the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, we aim to provide a blueprint and implement a prototype for the Urban Population Health Observatory (UPHO), a web-based platform that integrates classified group-level SDoH indicators to individual- and aggregate-level population health data.

Methods: The process of building the UPHO involves collecting and integrating data from several sources, classifying the collected data into drivers and outcomes, incorporating data science techniques for calculating measurable indicators from the raw variables, and studying the extent to which interventions are identified or developed to mitigate drivers that lead to the undesired outcomes.

Results: We generated and classified the indicators of social determinants of health, which are linked to COVID-19. To display the functionalities of the UPHO platform, we presented a prototype design to demonstrate its features. We provided a use case scenario for 4 different users.

Conclusions: UPHO serves as an apparatus for implementing effective interventions and can be adopted as a global platform for chronic and infectious diseases. The UPHO surveillance platform provides a novel approach and novel insights into immediate and long-term health policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and other future public health crises. The UPHO assists public health organizations and policymakers in their efforts in reducing health disparities, achieving health equity, and improving urban population health.

 

access the study at https://publichealth.jmir.org/2021/6/e28269/