One Health & Digital Surveillance
Research prototypeOneHealth Hub
Connecting community signals to integrated surveillance.
An independent research and innovation prototype exploring how community-based reporting, geospatial surveillance and multilingual risk communication could work together within an integrated One Health approach.
Built withNext.js · Supabase · Leaflet · GIS mapping
The public health challenge
Human, animal and environmental health information is often collected through separate reporting channels. This can make it difficult to connect early signals across sectors and communicate emerging risks to the communities concerned.
How might a community observation move from a basic reporting channel into an integrated surveillance picture, and how could relevant information return to that community?
Why it matters
Many zoonotic threats are first visible in animals or the environment. When human, animal and environmental health information sits in separate systems, a signal seen in one sector may not reach the people who could act on it in another.
My approach
From a community report back to a community message
01
Community reporting
A community observation enters through a field reporting pathway.
02
Integrated surveillance
Reports and events are organised across human, animal and environmental sectors.
03
Situational awareness
GIS mapping, filters and dashboard views support exploration of the records.
04
Risk communication
Zone-specific messages can be prepared and communicated in relevant languages.
A design decision
- Community-reported signal
- A symptom or sign someone observed, such as abortion in livestock. It carries a sector and a location, and waits for field verification.
- Disease event
- A named diagnosis or hazard from a fixed vocabulary. A reported symptom is never counted as a confirmed diagnosis.
What I developed
Captured from the live prototype. Figures shown are records held in the prototype, not official surveillance statistics.
Key features
Implemented
- Surveillance dashboard and GIS map
- Sector and severity filters
- Online and offline field reporting, with browser-based queueing and synchronisation
- Risk communication and community engagement interface
- Language selection: English, Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo and Pidgin
- USSD reporting
Implemented and tested using the Africa's Talking Sandbox. The workflow demonstrates how users can interact with the surveillance platform through USSD menus for reporting and accessing relevant information.
Deployment status: Sandbox-tested; production short-code subscription and live deployment are not yet established.
Concept only — not live
SORMAS interoperability
Exports a SORMAS-shaped JSON file for manual import; no live connection.
Limitations and lessons
My contribution
I developed the project concept, defined the reporting pathway and record taxonomy, and built the prototype. The work allowed me to explore how integrated surveillance, community-based reporting, GIS and risk communication could be brought together in a practical public health tool.
Limitations
OneHealth Hub is an independent research prototype, not a deployed surveillance system. It has not been validated in a live programme. USSD reporting has been tested only in the Africa's Talking Sandbox, with no production short code, and SORMAS interoperability is conceptual; neither is connected to live national systems.
It would next need:
- Field verification and review by surveillance practitioners.
- A production USSD short code and agreed interoperability arrangements.
Lessons
- Keeping community-reported signals apart from confirmed diagnoses has to be designed in from the start, in the record model itself.
- Building a working version made the hard problems concrete: verifying reports, connecting to national systems, and reaching people without smartphones.
Working on a programme, a research question or a role where this fits?
I'd like to hear about it — programme implementation, MEAL, research, surveillance or One Health.
Get in touch