About
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.
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.
Purpose of CSID Network
The CSID Network enables members to collaborate on the co-design, development, and maintenance of Climate Sensitive Infectious Disease (CSID) tools that are relevant, accessible, and impactful.
Our community of practice actively addresses two major barriers:
- academic systems that discourage scientific collaboration and undervalue software and community work, and
- the racial and geographic inequities pervasive in scientific and CSID modeling fields.
We aim to build relationships rooted in mutual aid, fostering a community-led CSID field and ensuring long-term network sustainability. Drawing inspiration from democratic governance and distributed leadership models, we are expanding our collective capacity to shape our own work, sustain efforts beyond arbitrary grant timelines, and bridge geographic and professional divides.
Our Values
As a values-driven community of practice, we know that how we work together is as important as the external work we put into the world. Our values are not meant to be nice words that live on a shelf, CSIDNet members strive to enact and embody our values in everyday work, interactions, and decisions. Our values serve as a shared compass for how we navigate the work ahead.
We prioritize equity in our science and network-building efforts.
Our goal is to break away from conventional global science models where extraction—whether from individual researchers or from communities in certain regions—is common practice. Without embedding equity into every aspect of our work, we risk replicating the very extractive and oppressive systems we aim to dismantle, creating dynamics that distance us from the communities we seek as partners.
Building good relations is essential for genuine collaboration and reciprocity.
Too often, “collaboration” is mandated by international scientific and development agencies, resulting in transactional relationships that rarely last, sustained only by funding. Inspired by Indigenous Science and Technology Studies, CSIDNet values the processes necessary to create and nurture good relations, recognizing that these relationships are foundational for authentic collaboration and meaningful reciprocity.
We believe in sharing what we can for collective futures.
“Open science” has faced legitimate critiques: only those with privilege can fully participate; there are longstanding histories of extraction cloaked as openness; and open science can sometimes deepen marginalization. CSIDNet, however, believes that collaboration and knowledge-sharing—grounded in mutuality and care—are essential to achieving social justice through science. We advocate for a model of open science that builds toward collective, equitable, and just futures.
How We Work
As an emergent network, we embrace a spirit of experimentation. While our values and core functions anchor us with a clear purpose, we recognize that our growing membership will guide us in iterating toward the best version of our network. We ask our members to engage deeply and embrace each phase of our evolving journey. With a commitment to transparency, shared power, and consistent channels for communication and feedback, we are cultivating a space where this collaborative spirit will yield a continuously improving CSID Network 2.0, 3.0, and beyond.
The CSID Network is a voluntary collaboration of Climate Sensitive Infectious Disease researchers and practitioners, united to pursue the purpose outlined above, and coordinated by a small staff and member-leaders.
Inspired by CSID peers and collective governance models, our network’s activities are organized into two main areas: Operational and Programmatic. The Operational area includes the administrative, financial, and organizational development efforts needed to sustain the network, while the Programmatic area encompasses the tool-building and research activities that initially attracted most of our members. Operational tasks are managed through committees, and programmatic work is driven by working groups. Both Network Staff and the Fellowship Program are intentionally positioned to bridge these two areas, fostering connections and insights across both operational and programmatic efforts.
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:
Fellowship Program
We host a regional fellowship program to invest in place-based communities.
Gatherings
We convene annual gatherings designed to practice transnational solidarity and grow the relationships needed to run a sustainable and impactful network.
Federated Working Groups
We use a community-led, federated working group model to govern the network and develop peer-led learning groups.