About

Background to the CSID Network

Climate change, an indisputable and stark reality of our time, impacts human health. The term “Climate Sensitive Infectious Disease” (CSID) is used to describe infectious diseases whose transmission and spread are directly influenced by changes and variations in climate and weather.

There has been an expansion of digital tools, such as climate-informed early-warning systems, to better understand and predict the impact of near-term and long-term shifts in climate on disease transmission. If implemented well, such tools have the potential to support governments, grassroots organizations, and individuals to proactively respond. A diverse, transdisciplinary community works on CSID tools including climate and health researchers, open source software developers, and software end users.

However, to date, those developing the tools have been unconnected to each other and their end users, with limited sharing of best practices for tool development and usage. CSID tools have also been primarily developed and directed by those outside of regions most affected by CSID rather than in the communities most impacted.

Thus, the emergent CSID Network looks to both connect a global community of actors contributing towards impactful CSID software tools and establish localized CSID communities that can link existing on-the-ground issues and initiatives to the development and maintenance of CSID tools.

How to Get Involved?

The CSID network leverages a three-pronged approach to foster meaningful connections within and across place-based communities working on and affected by CSID: