Laura’s project is part of the One Health European Joint Programme (OHEJP) formation projects under the name of EnvDis. It is co-founded by Zoetis and benefits from the collaboration with PHE.

EnvDis strives to understand better human salmonellosis and its epidemiology, and more specifically, to identify the role of the environment and animals in triggering and propagating salmonellosis in humans. This will be done with a novel modelling approach by identifying the expected number of salmonellosis cases conditional upon particular weather variables and farm animals distribution; and by quantifying the contribution of these variables to the burden of disease. This approach will exploit the linkage of about 500,000 salmonellosis case-records over 25 years in England and Wales with meteorological datasets at a high spatio-temporal resolution scale and without relying on regression models.

The final goal is to broaden our understanding of the disease dynamics at the environment-disease interface and to corroborate the suitability of incidence forecasting based on environmental information. This knowledge is crucial for preparedness and prevention, especially with respect to the increasing anthropogenic impact upon the environment/land use and climate change projections.

EnvDis was recently awarded with a OHEJP travel grant to visit the National Institute for Public Health and Environment (RIVM) in the Netherlands. The main objective of this scientific exchange is to validate EnvDis’ methodology by verifying the influence of the environment estimated for the UK and its applicability in a different country such as the Netherlands. This collaboration will ultimately contribute to strengthen EnvDis’ findings and expand on the insights on the epidemiology of salmonellosis.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauracgonzalezvilleta/

E-mail: l.gonzalezvilleta@surrey.ac.uk