GUEST LECTURE
Dr. Laith Hussain-Alkhateeb
Climate Change and Health: The early warning and responce concept for infectious Diseases
Date & Time
12.12.2022 10 AM CET
Location
Trainee Centre
Abstract
Climate change and unplanned urbanization have significantly impacted the global public health profile by enforcing population migration, creating vulnerable groups and favouring the spread and intensity of infectious diseases. Disease outbreaks are hence, not normally distributed but inextricably linked to disadvantaged households and societies in tropical and sub-tropical areas where health systems are often weak and over-stretched. The early detection and response to outbreaks is heavily reliant on routine disease surveillance systems. The use of climate-informed early warning systems – EWS (the organized mechanism to detect as early as possible any out-of-control state of disease phenomena) – has the potential to increase the effectiveness of outbreak control by intervening before or at the beginning of the epidemic curve, rather than during the downward slope.
Bio
Dr. Laith Hussain-Alkhateeb is anAssociate Professor at the School ofPublic Health and Community Medicineof Gothenburg University,Sweden. He is a Global Healthepidemiologist with expertise inpopulation surveillance, healthsystems and policy research withspecific interest in transforming standardized methods into routinepolicy and practice. Dr. Hussain-Alkhateeb has over 15 years ofresearch experience in low- and middle-income countries and hasparticipated and co-coordinated several national & internationalprojects in the area of maternal & child health and climate changeand health particularly in relation to climate-sensitive diseases. Hehas been a key member in the development and advancement ofnovel WHO methods such as the Early Warning And ResponseSystem for infectious diseases and, in the context of global mortalityascertainment, the innovation of verbal autopsy towards routineassessment of Universal Health Coverage – moving from medical tosocial and health system causes of death. In his PhD supervisionrole, Dr. Hussain-Alkhateeb is overseeing research projects in thearea of health system, register-based studies, biomarker researchand global antibiotic usage in Sweden, African and Middle East.
