France-Singapore cross-views
A workshop on the preliminary results of the SPACE research program, organized under the aegis of Université Paris 1-Panthéon Sorbonne, which co-supervises, with CNRS, the two main UMRs involved in the SPACE project: Géographie-cités, the project’s lead unit, and PRODIG, will take place on :
December 7-8, 2023
Center Panthéon
12 place du Panthéon
75005 Paris
Free but compulsory registration: szeyan.cheang@cnrsatcreate.sg
In an increasingly networked and mobile world, infectious diseases are increasingly globalized, undermining the efforts of the World Health Organization to enhance pathogen control efficiency. Such diseases spread through various media and impact populations unevenly across fragmented infrastructures and ecologies. While planetary urbanization has rendered all regions vulnerable, large urban areas remain the epicenters for epidemic outbreaks and transmissions as they serve as dense nodes of rapid economic and infrastructural development, urban inequalities, mobility and migration, and broader environmental changes.
While a substantial body of research has explored the risk factors of specific infectious diseases in cities, limited knowledge exists on the interactions between different diseases with varying transmission dynamics. Furthermore, there is a research gap in understanding how urban residents, situated within diverse socio-cultural and built environments, perceive epidemics, prepare to respond, negotiate with public policies, and contribute through their lifestyles to the mitigation or the spread of diseases.
In tropical areas such as Singapore and French overseas territories (e.g., Guadeloupe, Martinique, Réunion), significant Dengue outbreaks are a persistent concern, while an alarming progression of this disease is observed in the south of mainland France. The co-evolution of dengue fever with recurring airborne diseases, such as COVID-19, and the lack of knowledge regarding a large spectrum of risk factors (e.g. relating to social, green and built infrastructures) further complicates public health management.
In this light, a collaborative team of French and Singaporean researchers embarked on charting predictive models of dengue outbreaks and inform public policies based on the feedback of populations. This project, known as SPACE (Shaping Public Adaptive Capacity for Environmental Infectious Diseases) is supported by the Singapore National Research Foundation and focusses on Singapore as their case-study. By placing social sciences and architecture at the core of its approach, the SPACE project seeks to fill the knowledge gap in epidemiological theory by investigating, through various scales and methods, the social and urban dynamics at play in epidemics.
This workshop will present the preliminary findings of SPACE researchers and engage in dialogue with researchers in France who are studying public health and disease issues from various perspectives and disciplinary approaches. It will cover a range of topics, including spatial mapping and modeling of the habitats and spread of infectious diseases, public communication strategies within and outside of pandemics, public health interventions including an epidemiological evaluation on the efficacy of Wolbachia projects, and urban planning and waste management, in relation to dengue control, COVID-19, and other diseases. These discussions will offer an opportunity to develop a multidisciplinary approach to improve epidemiological models as well as spark further dialogues around data production and research protocols.
This event will take place over two days and will be conducted in English. It is organized under the auspices of the Université Paris 1-Panthéon Sorbonne, which co-supervise, with CNRS, the two primary UMRs engaged in the SPACE project: Géographie-cités, the project leader unit, and PRODIG.
