Andrew Tatem

University of Southampton · Faculty of Social and Human Sciences

Among other focus areas, the global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 3 and 11 seek to advance progress toward universal coverage of maternal, neonatal, and child health (MNCH) services and access to safe and affordable housing and basic services by 2030. Governments and development agencies have historically neglected the health and well-being...

Background The Hubei Province in China reported its last indigenous malaria case in September 2012, but imported malaria cases, particularly those related to Plasmodium vivax and Plasmodium falciparum, threaten Hubei’s malaria-free status. This study investigated the epidemiological changes in P. vivax and P. falciparum malaria in this province to...

Growth and developments in computing power, machine-learning algorithms and satellite imagery spatiotemporal resolution have led to rapid developments in automated feature-extraction. These methods have been applied to create geospatial datasets of features such as roads, trees and building footprints, at a range of spatial scales, with national an...

Mobile phone data have been increasingly used over the past decade or more as a pretty reliable indicator of human mobility to measure population movements and the associated changes in terms of population presence and density at multiple spatial and temporal scales. However, given the fact mobile phone data are not available everywhere and are gen...

Targeted public health interventions for an emerging epidemic are essential for preventing pandemics. During 2020-2022, China invested significant efforts in strict zero-COVID measures to contain outbreaks of varying scales caused by different SARS-CoV-2 variants. Based on a multi-year empirical dataset containing 131 outbreaks observed in China fr...

The ever-increasing pandemic and natural disasters might spatial-temporal overlap to trigger compound disasters that disrupt urban life, including human movements. In this study, we proposed a framework for data-driven analyses on mobility resilience to uncover the compound effects of COVID-19 and extreme weather events on mobility recovery across...

“Leaving no one behind” is the fundamental objective of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Latin America and the Caribbean is marked by social inequalities, whilst its total population is projected to increase to almost 760 million by 2050. In this context, contemporary and spatially detailed datasets that accurately capture the distribut...

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 11 and 3 emphasize the need to eliminate slums, provide access to safe and affordable housing and basic services, and achieve universal coverage of maternal, neonatal, and child health (MNCH) services by 2030. Governments and development agencies have historically neglected the problems associated with livin...

In times of crisis, real‐time data mapping population displacements are invaluable for targeted humanitarian response. The Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, forcibly displaced millions of people from their homes including nearly 6 million refugees flowing across the border in just a few weeks, but information was scarce regarding di...

Effective government services rely on accurate population numbers to allocate resources. In Colombia and globally, census enumeration is challenging in remote regions and where armed conflict is occurring. During census preparations, the Colombian National Administrative Department of Statistics conducted social cartography workshops, where communi...

Understanding the fine scale and subnational spatial distribution of reproductive, maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent health and development indicators is crucial for targeting and increasing the efficiency of resources for public health and development planning. National governments are committed to improve the lives of their people, lift th...

Low levels of agricultural productivity are associated with the persistence of food insecurity, poverty, and other socio-economic stresses. Mapping and monitoring agricultural dynamics and production in real-time at high spatial resolution are essential for ensuring food security and shaping policy interventions. However, an accurate yield estimati...

Objectives To investigate how the quality of maternal health services and travel times to health facilities affect birthing service utilisation in Eastern Region, Ghana. Design The study is a cross-sectional spatial interaction analysis of birth service utilisation patterns. Routine birth data were spatially linked to quality care, service deman...

Le dénombrement de la population, dénominateur de nombreux indicateurs statistiques, est crucial pour les politiques publiques d'un pays. Il est du ressort des instituts nationaux de statistique d’en organiser la collecte, le plus souvent par le biais d’un recensement. Que se passe-t-il lorsqu’une partie du territoire n’est pas accessible aux agent...

Estimates of national immunization coverage are crucial for guiding policy and decision-making in national immunization programs and setting the global immunization agenda. WHO and UNICEF estimates of national immunization coverage (WUENIC) are produced annually for various vaccine-dose combinations and all WHO Member States using information from...

Social distancing has been widely-implemented as a public health measure during the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite widespread application of social distancing guidance, the feasibility of people adhering to such guidance varies in different settings, influenced by population density, the built environment and a range of socio-economic factors. Social d...

Background The composite coverage index (CCI) provides an integrated perspective towards universal health coverage in the context of reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health. Given the sample design of most household surveys does not provide coverage estimates below the first administrative level, approaches for achieving more granular esti...

Background Women are at risk of severe adverse pregnancy outcomes attributable to Plasmodium spp. infection in malaria-endemic areas. Malaria control efforts since 2000 have aimed to reduce this burden of disease. Methods We used data from the Malaria Atlas Project and WorldPop to calculate global pregnancies at-risk of Plasmodium spp. infection. W...

Geographically precise identification and targeting of populations at risk of vaccine-preventable diseases has gained renewed attention within the global health community over the last few years. District level estimates of vaccination coverage and corresponding zero-dose prevalence constitute a potentially useful evidence base to evaluate the perf...

While there has been great success in increasing the coverage of new childhood vaccines globally, expanding routine immunization to reliably reach all children and communities has proven more challenging in many low- and middle-income countries. Achieving this requires vaccination strategies and interventions that identify and target those unvaccin...

Geographically precise identification and targeting of populations at risk of vaccine-preventable diseases has gained renewed attention within the global health community over the last few years. District level estimates of vaccination coverage and corresponding zero-dose prevalence constitute a potentially useful evidence base to evaluate the perf...

The size of the population, the denominator of many statistical indicators, is crucial for public policy. National statistical offices organize the collection of this information, most often through a census. But what happens when parts of a country are not accessible to census enumerators? Today, spatial data extracted from satellite imagery offer...

One of our novel and advanced modelling papers on mapping the coverage of multi-dose vaccines was published today in the journal of Statistics in Medicine. Many vaccines are often administered in multiple doses to boost their effectiveness. In the case of childhood vaccines, the coverage maps of the doses and the differences between these often co...

Background Access to healthcare is imperative to health equity and well-being. Geographic access to healthcare can be modeled using spatial datasets on local context, together with the distribution of existing health facilities and populations. Several population datasets are currently available, but their impact on accessibility analyses is unknow...

With the onset of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, public health measures such as physical distancing were recommended to reduce transmission of the virus causing the disease. However, the same approach in all areas, regardless of context, may lead to measures being of limited effectiveness and having unforeseen negative consequenc...

Background Geographic barriers to healthcare are associated with adverse maternal health outcomes. Modelling travel times using georeferenced data is becoming common in quantifying physical access. Multiple Demographic and Health Surveys ask women about distance-related problems accessing healthcare, but responses have not been evaluated against mo...

Zoonotic viruses that originate in wildlife harm global human health and economic prosperity. Understanding virus transmission at the human-animal-environment interface is a key component of pandemic risk-reduction. Zoonotic disease emergence is highest in biodiverse, tropical forests undergoing intensive land-use change. Phylodynamic analyses of v...

A novel coronavirus emerged in Wuhan in late 2019 and has caused the COVID-19 pandemic announced by the World Health Organization on March 12, 2020. This study was originally conducted in January 2020 to estimate the potential risk and geographic range of COVID-19 spread within and beyond China at the early stage of the pandemic. A series of connec...

Effective government services rely on accurate population numbers to allocate resources. In Colombia and globally, census enumeration is challenging in remote regions and where armed conflict is occurring. During census preparations, the Colombian National Administrative Department of Statistics conducted social cartography workshops where communit...

Disaggregated population counts are needed to calculate health, economic, and development indicators in Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs), especially in settings of rapid urbanisation. Censuses are often outdated and inaccurate in LMIC settings, and rarely disaggregated at fine geographic scale. Modelled gridded population datasets derived f...

Health service areas are essential for planning, policy and managing public health interventions. In this study, we delineate health service areas from routinely collected health data as a robust geographic basis for presenting access to maternal care indicators. A zone design algorithm was adapted to delineate health service areas through a cross...

Non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) and vaccination are two fundamental approaches for mitigating the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. However, the real-world impact of NPIs versus vaccination, or a combination of both, on COVID-19 remains uncertain. To address this, we built a Bayesian inference model to assess the changing effect...

Pandemics such as COVID-19 and their induced lockdowns/travel restrictions have a significant impact on people’s lives, especially for lower-income groups who lack savings and rely heavily on mobility to fulfill their daily needs. Taking the COVID-19 pandemic as an example, this study analysed the risk of returning to poverty for low-income househo...

Background Substantial inequalities exist in childhood vaccination coverage levels. To increase vaccine uptake, factors that predict vaccination coverage in children should be identified and addressed. Methods Using data from the 2018 Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey and geospatial data sets, we fitted Bayesian multilevel binomial and multino...

In times of volatility and crisis, it is essential to have real-time data mapping population movements to facilitate a rapid and effective humanitarian response. Considerable attention has been placed on the 5.8 million Ukrainian refugees crossing the border as of early May 2022, but information is scarce to quantify and locate over 38 million peop...

Global change impacts including climate change, increased CO2 and nitrogen deposition can be determined through a more precise characterisation of Land Surface Phenology (LSP) parameters. In addition, accurate estimation of LSP dates is being increasingly used in applications such as mapping vegetation types, yield forecasting, and irrigation manag...

Access to health care is imperative to health equity and well-being. Geographic access to health care can be modelled by combining different spatial datasets, among others, on the distribution of existing health facilities and populations. Several population datasets are currently available, but their impact on accessibility analyses is unknown. In...

Achieving equity in vaccination coverage has been a critical priority within the global health community. Despite increased efforts recently, certain populations still have a high proportion of un-and under-vaccinated children in many low-and middle-income countries (LMICs). These populations are often assumed to reside in remote-rural areas, urban...

Achieving equity in vaccination coverage has been a critical priority within the global health community. Despite increased efforts recently, certain populations still have a high proportion of un- and under-vaccinated children in many low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). These populations are often assumed to reside in remote-rural areas, urb...

Access to health care is imperative to health equity and well-being. Geographic access to health care can be modelled by combining different spatial datasets, among others, on the distribution of existing health facilities and populations. Several population datasets are currently available, but their impact on accessibility analyses is unknown. In...

Disaggregated population counts are needed to calculate health, economic, and development indicators in Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs), especially in settings of rapid urbanisation. Censuses are often outdated and inaccurate in LMIC settings, and rarely disaggregated at fine geographic scale. Modelled gridded population datasets derived f...

The national census is an essential data source to support decision-making in many areas of public interest. However, this data may become outdated during the intercensal period, which can stretch up to several decades. In this study, we develop a Bayesian hierarchical model leveraging recent household surveys and building footprints to produce up-...

Background Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 aims to ensure inclusive and equitable access for all by 2030, leaving no one behind. One indicator selected to measure progress towards achievement is the participation rate of youth in education (SDG 4.3.1). Here we aim to understand drivers of school attendance using one country in East Africa as a...

COVID-19 has impacted the health and livelihoods of billions of people since it emerged in 2019. Vaccination for COVID-19 is a critical intervention that is being rolled out globally to end the pandemic. Understanding the spatial inequalities in vaccination coverage and access to vaccination centres is important for planning this intervention natio...

Public and school holidays have important impacts on population mobility and dynamics across multiple spatial and temporal scales, subsequently affecting the transmission dynamics of infectious diseases and many socioeconomic activities. However, worldwide data on public and school holidays for understanding their changes across regions and years h...

Large-scale gridded population datasets available at the global or continental scale have become an important source of information in applications related to sustainable development. In recent years, the emergence of new population models has leveraged the inclusion of more accurate and spatially detailed proxy layers describing the built-up en...

Population and housing censuses provide essential demographic information for local, national and international decision-making and response. However, census data in the most vulnerable countries are often outdated or partial because political instability, conflict and natural disasters prevent a nationwide enumeration. The bottom-up modelling appr...

Background Since early March 2020, the COVID-19 epidemic across the United Kingdom has led to a range of social distancing policies, which resulted in changes to mobility across different regions. An understanding of how these policies impacted travel patterns over time and at different spatial scales is important for designing effective strategies...

Background Through a combination of strong routine immunization (RI), strategic supplemental immunization activities (SIA) and robust surveillance, numerous countries have been able to approach or achieve measles elimination. The fragility of these achievements has been shown, however, by the resurgence of measles since 2016. We describe trends in...

Governments worldwide have rapidly deployed non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the effect of these individual NPI measures across space and time has yet to be sufficiently assessed, especially with the increase of policy fatigue and the urge for NPI relaxation in the vaccination era. Using the decay...

Call detail records (CDRs) from mobile phone metadata are a promising data source for mapping poverty indicators in low- and middle-income countries. These data provide information on social networks, call behavior, and mobility patterns in a population, which are correlated with measures of socioeconomic status. CDRs are passively collected and pr...

Non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) and vaccination are two fundamental approaches to mitigate the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic. Vaccination strategies are generally less costly and socially/economically disruptive than NPI strategies, such as business closures, social distancing, and face mask mandates, as evidenced by highly v...

The twenty-first century has witnessed a wave of severe infectious disease outbreaks, not least the COVID-19 pandemic, which has had a devastating impact on lives and livelihoods around the globe. The 2003 severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus outbreak, the 2009 swine flu pandemic, the 2012 Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus outbr...

Background Modern transportation plays a key role in the spread of SARS-CoV-2 and new variants. However, little is known about the exact transmission risk of the virus on airplanes. Methods Using the itinerary and epidemiological data of COVID-19 cases and close contacts on domestic airplanes departing from Wuhan city in China before the lockdown...

Education is a human right and a driver of development, but, is still not accessible for a vast number of adolescents and school-age-youths. Out-of-school adolescents and youth rates (SDG 4.3.1) in lower and middle-income countries have been at a virtual halt for almost a decade. Thus, there is an increasing need to understand geographic variation...

Household survey data are frequently used to measure reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health (RMNCAH) service utilisation in low and middle income countries. However, these surveys are typically only undertaken every 5 years and tend to be representative of larger geographical administrative units. Investments in district healt...

Human mobility is a core component of human behavior and its quantification is critical for understanding its impact on infectious disease transmission, traffic forecasting, access to resources and care, intervention strategies, and migratory flows. When mobility data are limited, spatial interaction models have been widely used to estimate human t...

Crop production is a major source of food and livelihood for many people in arid and semi-arid (ASA) regions across the world. However, due to irregular climatic events, ASA regions are affected commonly by frequent droughts that can impact food production. In addition, ASA regions in the Middle East and Africa are often characterised by political...

2020 was an unprecedented year, with rapid and drastic changes in human mobility due to the COVID-19 pandemic. To understand the variation in commuting patterns among the Chinese population across stable and unstable periods, we used nationwide mobility data from 318 million mobile phone users in China to examine the extreme fluctuations of populat...

Human travel is one of the primary drivers of infectious disease spread. Models of travel are often used that assume the amount of travel to a specific destination decreases as cost of travel increases with higher travel volumes to more populated destinations. Trip duration, the length of time spent in a destination, can also impact travel patterns...