Devex: Opinion: Detecting disease from the skies
Tim Ford, professor and chair of the department of environmental health sciences and director of the Institute for Global Health at UMass Amherst

“…[O]ver the last 10 years, prediction using satellite imagery has increased to include a wide variety of diseases from cholera to bird flu. … If we fail to invest in this critical area of science, we place the health of future generations at grave risk. … There are many drivers of disease risk — chemical, biological, and physical. Examining how each factor influences pathogen, vector, and host biology for each disease of interest, and incorporating these into the algorithms [used to examine satellite data] can only strengthen our ability to predict future outbreaks, epidemics, and pandemics” (4/17).