Citizen science for disease predictions
Researchers are using citizen science data combined with NASA Earth satellite observations to create new forecast models that can predict the spread of mosquito-carrying diseases. However, they have said that more data is needed to improve these models and are calling on citizen science to help fill the gaps.
“We do not have enough information on the geographic distribution of mosquitoes and time-variation in their populations. If a lot of people participated in this citizen science initiative worldwide, it will help fill in gaps and that would help our work,” said Assaf Anyamba, a scientist from Universities Space Research Association who is using satellite data to study mosquitoes at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, US.
From Autumn 2017 to spring 2018, in ongoing work two NASA DEVELOP teams at Goddard studied Western Europe, which is not typically known for mosquito disease outbreaks. They blended citizen science data with NASA satellite observations of land surface temperatures, humidity, soil moisture, elevation, vegetation and precipitation, and used it to create an interactive, open-source map on Google Earth Engine to improve prediction models for disease-carrying mosquitoes. “Knowing the mosquito species and their approximate populations at a given time provides useful information on the potential of occurrence of a particular pathogen, or disease transmission,” Anyamba explained.
The public can use an app called GLOBE Observer to help track mosquitoes and collect data over the summer using the Mosquito Habitat Mapper tool in the app.