Health RADAR: Responsible Access to Data for Analysis and Research

A barrier to entry for climate-sensitive infectious disease (CSID) modelling is access to local, well-documented data. In this project we will develop an open-source web based platform in which we collate, curate and transform data to catalyse CSID modelling. The tool can be used to explore data across a range of diseases in several countries.

To develop the foundational tool, we will focus on data related to malaria transmission in Botswana, Eswatini, Namibia and South Africa, owing to data availability through multiple sources and research and political interest in malaria elimination. Data usability is further increased by responsible documentation and contextualisation with guidance to enable CSID modelling. The digital tool will incorporate health, climate, transmission, entomological, economic and demographic data.

Extensive dissemination and co-creation will enable the tool to be sustained by a growing community of local, African CSID modellers and analysts. Though the digital tool may eventually be extended beyond malaria and into other geographic regions, the principal goal remains the same: to enable the development of CSID models calibrated to operationalisable datasets that are responsibly sourced, where the data characteristics and geographic context are well incorporated.