SAN DIEGO — Scientists at UC San Diego this week revealed a new platform intended to translate data-driven academic disease forecasting into practical recommendations for politicians and other policymakers.
UCSD’s School of Global Policy and Strategy was behind the new concept — the Disease Incidence and Resource Estimator. DIRE is an interactive map that uses analytics to predict where dengue fever and malaria outbreaks are likely to occur in Brazil and Peru, and the types of health resources that may be needed to control and treat them, according to a statement from the university.
“This project is about getting academic breakthroughs off the shelf and into the hands of the people making decisions,” said Gordon McCord, associate teaching professor at the School of Global Policy and Strategy. “We took machine-learning models that predict dengue and turned them into something governments can actually use — so they can plan ahead and act before cases spike.”…