Mapping Vulnerability to Strengthen Public Health

Public health programs often face a fundamental challenge: where should limited resources be deployed to have the greatest impact?While national statistics provide an overview, they rarely capture the local inequalities that determine who can actually access care. Communities only a few kilometers apart may experience vastly different realities in terms of healthcare access, poverty, infrastructure, or social vulnerability. To address this challenge, EPCON collaborated with the World Health Organization (WHO) to develop a high-resolution vulnerability index designed to identify populations that face the greatest barriers to healthcare access. This work is described in a newly released pre-print publication, which we are proud to share.

Turning Data into Actionable Insights

The vulnerability index integrates a wide range of demographic, socioeconomic, and health-access indicators into a unified geospatial framework. By combining these different determinants of health, the model provides granular insights into which communities are most vulnerable.

Rather than relying solely on disease incidence data, the model captures structural drivers of vulnerability, such as poverty, population distribution, and accessibility of health services. This allows public health planners to better understand where barriers to care are most likely to occur, even before outbreaks or disease clusters become visible in routine data.

The result is a spatially explicit vulnerability map, capable of identifying underserved communities from national level down to village or neighborhood resolution.

Data Sources Behind the Model

To build the vulnerability index, multiple high-resolution data sources were integrated into a harmonized geospatial modeling pipeline. These include:

• Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) spatial datasets

• Modeled health indicators from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME)

• High-resolution population data from WorldPop

• Data layers from the Humanitarian Data Exchange (HDX)

• National statistical and health information systems

• Population density and settlement distribution layers

• Socioeconomic indicators, including education levels and poverty proxies

• Healthcare accessibility indicators, such as distance to health facilities

• Infrastructure data, including road networks and accessibility layers

• Programmatic public health data where available

These datasets are combined to produce highly granular vulnerability estimates, enabling policymakers and program implementers to understand both who is at risk and why.

From Vulnerability Mapping to Smarter Interventions

The vulnerability index is integrated within the EPCON Epi-control platform, where it supports governments, NGOs, and international organizations in planning targeted interventions.

By identifying communities that face the greatest barriers to healthcare access, the model helps decision-makers:

• Prioritize high-risk communities for screening or vaccination campaigns

• Optimize outreach strategies and service delivery

• Allocate limited resources more effectively

• Strengthen equitable access to healthcare services

Ultimately, this approach enables programs to move beyond reactive surveillance toward proactive, data-driven public health planning.

A Step Toward More Equitable Health Systems

Understanding vulnerability is essential for building resilient health systems. By combining geospatial data science with public health expertise, this work demonstrates how data can guide smarter, fairer, and more impactful health interventions. We are proud to contribute to this effort in collaboration with WHO and our partners.