Bridging the Gap between Public Health, Immunology, Parasitology, and Environmental/Occupational Health

Abstract

Author(s): Chiranjeev Singh, Poorti Sharma, Venu Anand Das

Understanding the spread of diseases and how to best control them requires researchers from many fields to work together. This is especially true in the fields of public health, immunology, parasitology, and environmental and occupational health. Diseases in today's complex global health scene sometimes cross beyond the boundaries of traditional fields of research, making it necessary to take a more Comprehensive Approach (CA) to their investigation. Insights from public health, immunology, parasitology, and environmental/occupational health can be combined to form a more holistic picture of disease dynamics. An increase in positive population health outcomes is a direct result of this method's ability to facilitate more efficient tactics for disease prevention, control, and treatment. In this paper, it is suggested the use of Multidisciplinary Advanced Data Integration Task Platforms (MADITP) to build integrated models from data across disciplines using state-of-the-art computational techniques. These models will recreate the complex interactions between infections, hosts, and their environments, and will provide a single setting in which to investigate these relationships and develop new approaches to disease prevention, treatment, and control. These simulations can help us better understand the dynamics of disease distribution and use that knowledge to make informed decisions about public health policy. Health officials, politicians, and researchers can improve their ability to respond to disease outbreaks and devise effective interventions through utilizing simulation results to inform their decisionmaking processes. To better protect public health on a global scale, academics and practitioners must collaborate together across academic disciplines.

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