When Mosquitoes Come to Town: A One Health Simulation for Climate-Resilient Urban Preparedness
Organisers
European Network of Multidisciplinary Residents in Public Health (EuroNet MRPH); Paris, France
Department for Crisis Preparedness and Response, Environmental Health Division, Croatian Institute of Public Health; Zagreb, Croatia
Public Health Unit, Local Health Unit of Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro; Vila Real, Portugal
Institut de Recerca Sant Pau, Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau; Barcelona, Spain
National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM); Bilthoven, The Netherlands
Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore; Rome, Italy
Organising institution
The workshop would be organised by the European Network of Multidisciplinary Residents in Public Health (EuroNet MRPH) and delivered by a team of five EuroNet MRPH members, all of whom are medical residents in public health with relevant experience and interests in infectious disease prevention, climate and health, preparedness, One Health and urban public health.
EuroNet MRPH is well placed to organise this workshop as a European resident-led network dedicated to capacity building, professional exchange, and collaboration among residents and early-career professionals in public health. As a resident-led network, EuroNet is particularly suited to facilitate a peer-learning format in which early-career professionals learn with and from each other through applied public health scenarios.
The proposed workshop builds directly on EuroNet’s 2026 Spring Meeting, organised under the theme: “Facing the Future of Arboviruses: One Health Perspectives in the Era of Climate Change”, which addresses arboviruses through public health preparedness, One Health, early warning, genomic surveillance, scientific communication, urban design, travel-related risks, outbreak response, and advocacy.
Climate change, urbanisation, and population mobility are turning arboviral threats from a distant concern into a concrete preparedness challenge for European cities. This half-day interactive workshop will use arboviruses as a practical case study to explore how climate change, urban environments, social inequities, surveillance capacity and urban design interact to shape emerging public health threats.
Participants will be placed in a fictional European city facing an emerging arboviral threat under changing climatic conditions. Through a structured One Health simulation, they will analyse urban and environmental risk factors, identify vulnerable groups, interpret surveillance signals, prioritise and coordinate an early public health response, and develop longer-term ‘health-by-design’ prevention strategies to reduce future vector-borne disease risk.
The workshop will follow a three-step learning arc:
1. Understand the risk – analysing how urban environments, climate conditions, human mobility, social vulnerability and vector ecology create arboviral risk in cities.
2. Respond to the event – working through a simulated urban arboviral outbreak requiring coordinated One Health preparedness and response.
3. Prevent recurrence – designing longer-term urban and public health interventions that reduce vector-borne disease risk while supporting climate resilience, equity, and healthier urban environments.
Learning objectives
By the end of the workshop, participants will be able to:
- Explain how climate change, urbanisation and changing vector ecology influence arboviral risk in European cities.
- Identify environmental, infrastructural, social and mobility-related determinants of urban vector-borne disease risk.
- Apply a One Health approach to multidisciplinary surveillance, risk assessment, risk communication and coordinated outbreak response.
- Prioritise early public health actions under uncertainty during an emerging arboviral event.
- Propose health-by-design interventions that reduce future vector-borne disease risk while supporting climate resilience and equity.
Target audience
The workshop is intended primarily for public health residents and early-career public health professionals, while also welcoming practitioners, researchers, policymakers, and local public health actors working in infectious disease control, environmental health, urban health, climate and health, emergency preparedness, health promotion, One Health, or public health governance.
It is conceived as a peer-learning and capacity-building space for early-career professionals, by early-career professionals, while remaining open to more experienced participants who wish to contribute to multidisciplinary exchange. No specialised prior knowledge of arboviruses is required, although the workshop will also offer practical value for participants already working in infectious disease prevention, climate-sensitive surveillance, or urban public health.