I recently read with interest Dr. Gammino’s post on how geospatial data and microplanning is helping the CDC and its partners to work towards the eradication of polio.

There Dr. Gammino describes the hurdles faced by healthcare workers in countries where census data is often missing, where political, seasonal and geographical variations are making these more difficult. The description of the different social structures in urban or rural areas was also interesting. But the post also highlights how “social mapping” and geographic information systems (GIS) are helping understanding where the population resides and helping reaching them (here for polio vaccination but this could be for other purposes: maternity care, child care, etc.).

In this respect, modelling could help determine the best strategy to reach still unknown population, where settlers could move, where to concentrate efforts e.g. And a few papers actually address these issues. For instance, Rahmandad et al. studied the impact of network types (networks between individuals) on the dynamics of a polio outbreak. Or Tony Wragg reported the influence of information campaigns on polio eradication in India (one could use information as an infectious agent).

Now it would be interesting to see the two worlds collide: having these geotagged information feed a prediction model and reverting back predictions to healthcare workers in the field to inform them of potential areas to visit. This would have some implications for logistics and these efforts should also address privacy questions. But it would potentially help eradicating polio too.