Study highlights flaws in global disease mapping

A study led by The University of Western Australia has shown that maps routinely produced to track the spread of diseases such as COVID-19 are flawed, resulting in inaccurate targeting of interventions and misallocation of life-saving resources. The research team has developed a new mapping technique, which overcomes an 80-year-old problem, improving the efficiency of geographically-targeted disease responses. Disease mapping is fundamental to public health and has been used for decades to track diseases of significant impact to humans, including HIV, malaria, cholera, Ebola and now COVID-19. The accuracy of disease maps is vital to help health authorities make effective decisions, keep people safe and prevent diseases from spreading. Inaccurate disease maps undermine the effectiveness of interventions such as social distancing, mass testing and the delivery of vaccines to high-risk areas. The study, published in the International Journal of Health Geographics, highlights flaws in global mapping systems that rely on ‘single-aggregation disease maps’. These...