Camilo Vargas
Senior Solutions Development Lead, Geospatial Health and Development Data Engine
camilo.vargas@telethonkids.org.au
Within the Malaria Atlas Project, Camilo leads the development of geospatial solutions to support the effective consolidation, and dissemination of epidemiological research data.
Camilo has more than 10 years’ experience developing geospatial technology using state-of-the-art Big Data methodologies and high-performance computing technologies for the purposes of scientific research in different fields such as Mapping Science, Space Science, Urban Science and, more recently, to address epidemiological research.
Camilo holds a Master of Science in Geographic Information Science from University College London (UCL). He completed his dissertation on ‘A GIS-based Web 2.0 mapping application for the creation of geomorphological datasets of Mars’, which was the Winner for the RICS London and South East Student Awards 2010.
Prior to joining the Malaria Atlas Project, Camilo co-founded and acted as a Geospatial Information Engineer at Prospective Labs. As a Technical Lead for the Prospective Platform, he led a small team of software engineers building an integrated urban forecasting platform whose goal is to enable governments, businesses and communities to foresee the impact of changes to city systems and plan alternative futures.
Before that, Camilo was a Research Associate at the UCL Bartlett Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, where his research focussed on the study of urban accessibility and sustainability using spatial analysis and land use transportation modelling methods, in a way that the predictions can be used to make better informed decisions for the determination of policies to improve urban sustainability; using spatiotemporal GIS, activity-based modelling and distributed computing with open source tools.
Projects
Development of a universal aftercare model for people who have presented to the emergency department for a suicidal crisis in WA
The Mental Health Commission (MHC) of Western Australia has provided funding to The Kids Research Institute Australia to undertake exploratory research to inform a WA approach to aftercare.
Modelling the COVID pandemic with the Geographical COVID-19 Model (GEO-COV)
Researchers have developed a new model for simulating covid-19 outbreaks in Western Australia.
Published research
Trends in treatment-seeking for fever in children under five years old in 151 countries from 1990 to 2020
Access to medical treatment for fever is essential to prevent morbidity and mortality in individuals and to prevent transmission of communicable febrile illness in communities. Quantification of the rates at which treatment is accessed is critical for health system planning and a prerequisite for disease burden estimates.
Impacts on Human Movement in Australian Cities Related to the COVID-19 Pandemic
No studies have yet examined high-resolution shifts in the spatial patterns of human movement in Australia throughout 2020 and 2021, a period coincident with the repeated enactment and removal of varied governmental restrictions aimed at reducing community transmission of SARS-CoV-2. We compared overlapping timeseries of COVID-19 pandemic-related restrictions, epidemiological data on cases and vaccination rates, and high-resolution human movement data to characterize population-level responses to the pandemic in Australian cities.
Evaluating COVID-19-Related Disruptions to Effective Malaria Case Management in 2020–2021 and Its Potential Effects on Malaria Burden in Sub-Saharan Africa
The COVID-19 pandemic has led to far-reaching disruptions to health systems, including preventative and curative services for malaria. The aim of this study was to estimate the magnitude of disruptions in malaria case management in sub-Saharan Africa and their impact on malaria burden during the COVID-19 pandemic. We used survey data collected by the World Health Organization, in which individual country stakeholders reported on the extent of disruptions to malaria diagnosis and treatment.
Maps and metrics of insecticide-treated net access, use, and nets-per-capita in Africa from 2000-2020
Insecticide-treated nets (ITNs) are one of the most widespread and impactful malaria interventions in Africa, yet a spatially-resolved time series of ITN coverage has never been published. Using data from multiple sources, we generate high-resolution maps of ITN access, use, and nets-per-capita annually from 2000 to 2020 across the 40 highest-burden African countries.