Crossing the "silos of expertise" in humanitarian technology

Says Janet Ginsburg: "A full year before the CDC reported cases of paralysis in West Nile patients, cases had been reported in veterinary journals in large mammals. Nevermind that humans are, in fact, large mammals, doctors don't have time to read veterinarian journals and vice-versa".

There are similar examples in just about every field, and that's why Ginsburg -- a former BusinessWeek science reporter with extensive experience in covering things like biosurveillance -- has been working with InSTEDD (see this previous post) to imagine a way to cross these silos of expertise and promote cross-disciplinary awareness and collaboration. "Though specialization has led to a greater aggregate knowledge, gaps between disciplines mean missed opportunities and potential dangers", she told me the other day. The answer: the Humanitarian Technology Review (HTR -- not the final name), an attempt to provide experts across a range of fields -- and across the world -- a place to learn about each other's work, and to connect.

If this sounds generic, the fields that the HTR will cover aren't: early disease detection, predictive modeling and simulation, mobile communications, transportation, water and sanitation, green tech, climate change impacts, machine translation, vaccines, crisis management, food security, resilience and recovery, energy, chronic disease, microbiology, just to mention a few.

What connects these fields? The HTR defines technology broadly: "anything and everything that can make a difference". One of the key points is that "disease and disaster are most often viewed as separate issues, and handled by different agencies and specialists". Yet, there is no humanitarian crisis without a health component, or a serious disease outbreak without a humanitarian dimension. Likewise, "most human diseases are zoonotic, meaning they also affect animals; animal and human health are two sides of the same coin. And regional disasters can quickly go global, while global events can have devastating local consequences".

These intersections are increasingly frequent and producing severe impacts. The HTR is an attempt to mix and match ideas and innovations that can lead to better answers. "Some of the most promising developments in the field over the last few years are the result of inspired combinations", is stated in the Review's project documents. For instance:

• lightweight fabric + satellite technology = a cheaper portable satellite dish
• software + cell phones = real-time surveillance for bird flu
• GPS + interactive mapping = real time tracking of fires and floods
• solar panels + refrigerator = reliable field transport for vaccines
• filter + straw = a mobile water purification device
• open source water tech + microfinance = funding for small water projects
• genetic sampling  +  fast data analysis = identifying a pathogen in hours

The core of the HTR will be an electronic newsletter and website, which will be complemented with videos, blogs, podcasts, downloadable software and tools, translation and mapping programs, etc (plus print and events) -- whatever platform can serve its mission.

Here is a PDF describing the project. Initiated by InSTEDD, the Review will be editorially independent. For more details and an account of the HTR's genesis, see this post on Ginsburg's blog.

Comments

[Paul Currion]

Bruno - thanks for covering this, it's great to get some updates on InSTEDD's activity. The HTR sounds like a good idea, although I am a little worried about whether the target audience has been clearly defined - at the moment it seems to be too wide to generate any real sense of "community". My first thoughts are up at http://www.humanitarian.info/2008/03/27/instedd-publishes/.

[Marcel Salathe]

While I find the idea in general appealing, I am note sure whether the problem this approach tries to solve is really as big as the article seems to imply.

Janet Ginsburg's statement ("Nevermind that humans are, in fact, large mammals, doctors don't have time to read veterinarian journals and vice-versa") says a lot. A) Todays scientific search engines (ISI Web of Science, PubMed, Google Scholar etc.) make it fairly easy to keep up-to-date on your subject, independent of the journal where it appears, and B) if doctors don't have time to read these journals, I'm not sure what would make them read any particular cross-disciplinary journal.

[Paul Currion]

Marcel - I think the problem is as big as the article says, but it also seems to be an inevitable part of the way that the system has developed. If that is the case, then it's unlikely that the problem can be addressed at root, so the question becomes: given that the gaps between disciplines exist, what problems does this create in practical terms? We can then address those problems one-by-one, which I think is what InSTEDD is trying to do.