Experts gather to structure resilient health responses

DAVAO CITY—A university-based disease watch and analytics center here will gather international experts on health, artificial intelligence and other disciplines to discuss more adaptive measures to address pressing health concerns that come in various forms, speed and complex configuration.

The Mindanao Center for Disease Watch and Analytics (Diwa Center), a unit of the University of the Philippines-Mindanao, will host the International Conference for Interdisciplinary Approaches to Health (Iciah) 2026, a gathering of scientists and global experts on academic, scientific and professional circles to tackle issues on health concerns and responses.

“The complexity of today’s health challenges, from emerging diseases to climate-related risks, demands that we move beyond siloed thinking. Iciah 2026 brings together different disciplines because no single discipline can build resilient health systems on its own,” said May Anne E. Mata, convener of the conference.

Mata said artificial intelligence has been reshaping disease surveillance and climate shocks worsen health challenges worldwide, and the conference will address these issues as researchers, practitioners, and decision-makers will convene virtually on September 8-9  (via Zoom) for the Iciah 2026.

The conference’s theme is “The NOW and the NEXT for Health: Navigating a World in FLUX [Fast, Localized, Uncharted, and eXperimental]” and Mata said the conference will focus “on the interface of health, AI, nowcasting, and climate, bringing together interdisciplinary solutions for building health systems resilient to compounding global disruptions”.

She said that “going fully online this year is not only a logistical choice, it is also how we make sure researchers and practitioners, especially from low- and middle-income settings, get to join the conversation about something that affects us all.”

Mata is a professor of applied mathematics at UP Mindanao and founding director of Diwa Center. She was one of six Filipino scientists among Asia Scientist Magazine’s top 100 researchers of 2026 and a recipient of the 2025 Outstanding Young Scientist award from the National Academy of Science and Technology,

Philippines, for her research in infectious disease modeling and analysis.

The Iciah is a biennial conference and Mata said this year’s edition will be held online to make it accessible to participants affected by the global disruptions, such as increasing travel costs due to fuel shortages.

The Diwa Center said confirmed speakers include experts such as Ganna Rozhnova, associate professor in infectious disease modeling at University Medical Center Utrecht, the Netherlands; Rachel Lowe, Global Health Resilience Group Leader, Barcelona Supercomputing Center, Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies (Icrea), Spain; Swapnil Mishra, assistant professor of global health and disease modelling at the National University of Singapore; Yong-Chau Su, professor of biomedical and environmental biology, Kaohsiung Medical University, Taiwan; and Chong Chee Seng, director of the Environmental Epidemiology and Toxicology Division, National Environment Agency, Singapore.

The Diwa Center said researchers, practitioners, and students are invited to submit on of before August 15 their abstracts for consideration as online oral presenters.