Exploring the Spread of Zika: Using Interactive Visualizations to Control Vector-Borne Diseases

Vector-borne diseases pose a major public health threat. Combined, these diseases contribute significantly to illness and mortality worldwide and have an adverse impact on development and economic growth of nations. Public health stakeholders seeking to control and prevent these diseases are confronted with a myriad of challenges. Some of these difficulties are related to the nature of the data, the uncertainty of disease dynamics, and volatility of human-environment interactions. Visualization tools are capable of ameliorating some of these challenges. In this paper, the authors demonstrate how interactive visualizations can support stakeholders’ decision-making tasks. In particular, they present a visualization tool they created that can support control efforts related to the recent Zika outbreak in Brazil.