Internship – Data Analyst – Quantitative Evidence on the Impact of Climate Change on Animal Health using WAHIS and historical WOAH animal health data, DIAD – WOAH HQ
Paris, France
| Context |
| The World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH – founded as OIE) is a leading intergovernmental organisation representing 183 Members worldwide. Through its activities, WOAH makes a decisive contribution to improving animal health, protecting animal welfare and strengthening Veterinary Services. The Organisation provides transparent information on world’s animal health situation, and promotes international standards, particularly in terms of the safety of trade in live animals and animal products. More information can be found on WOAH’s website .Joining WOAH means taking part in the development of one of the leading international organisations, recognised and associated with other multilateral institutions, in the field of worldwide health. It means helping to build a global approach to health, combining animal and human health in a “One Health” approach. It means joining teams motivated by the impact of their actions, the sense of their collective commitment and their recognised professionalism in their respective fields of expertise.WOAH’s headquarters are based in Paris. The Organisation is present on every continent through 13 Regional or Sub-regional Representations. WOAH has 250 staff members, two-thirds of whom are based at headquarters. |
| Job Description |
| Positioning and reportingThe Intern will report to Gilles Guillot ( g.guillot@woah.org), Head of the Data Integration and Analytics Department, and will be under the supervision of Paolo Tizzani ( p.tizzani@woah.org), Senior Veterinary Epidemiologist. |
| Job purposeBackground The World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH), whose statutory name is “Office International des Epizooties”, was created on 25 January 1924. WOAH is an intergovernmental organisation subject to public international law. It is responsible for improving animal health worldwide. The standards it develops for the trade of live animals and products of animal origin are recognised by the World Trade Organization as reference international sanitary rules (Home – WOAH – World Organisation for Animal Health). Since its foundation, WOAH has been collecting information on animal diseases. As knowledge of pathogens and diseases is crucial for animal and human health, WOAH asks all its Members to report the occurrence of specific pathogens and diseases on the official list in a timely and complete manner. This information is collected and displayed on a specific public interface, the World Animal Health Information System (WAHIS). WAHIS collects official information from 183 WOAH Members and around 20 non-Members, providing a global snapshot of the animal health situation, with a continuous series of disease events available since 2005. Before WAHIS, official animal health information was collected through the Handistatus II system, which holds data for the period 1996–2004. For earlier decades, the information reported by Members was compiled and published by WOAH in annual and periodic publications (such as the World Animal Health yearbooks), which are currently available mainly as PDF documents and have not yet been structured into a database. Taken together, these sources represent one of the longest and most geographically comprehensive official records of animal disease occurrence worldwide, potentially spanning more than four decades. Climate change is increasingly recognised as a major driver of infectious disease dynamics. Changes in temperature and precipitation patterns and in the frequency of extreme weather events (heatwaves, droughts, floods) can alter disease transmission by acting on pathogens, vectors and hosts, by shifting the geographical ranges of vectors and wildlife reservoirs, and by interacting with land use, farming systems, animal movements and trade. Its impact on animal health, however, remains understudied compared with its impact on human health. A systematic review recently co-authored by WOAH (Lavarello-Schettini A. et al., Climate change and animal infectious diseases: a systematic review of emerging evidence, Lancet Planetary Health, 2026) identified only 33 studies, published between 1970 and 2024, that empirically linked climatic factors to observed disease outcomes in animal populations. Although most of them (73%) reported positive associations between climatic variables and increased disease risk, expanded geographical range or higher prevalence, the evidence base remains geographically and taxonomically imbalanced: it is dominated by vector-borne diseases and domestic species, while Africa, South-East Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, Oceania, wildlife hosts, and bacterial, parasitic and directly transmitted diseases are under-represented. More than 6,000 studies were excluded because they relied only on environmental suitability indices, modelled vector abundance or synthetic outcomes, highlighting a persistent scarcity of longitudinal empirical disease data linked to long-term changes in weather and climate. The review calls on institutions that already hold such data to make them available for research, and for animal health surveillance to become climate-aware. With its multi-decadal official records of disease occurrence for all its Members, WOAH is uniquely placed to help fill this gap. Purpose WOAH intends to generate robust quantitative evidence on the impact of climate change and climate variability on animal health at global, regional and national levels, by linking its long-term official animal disease data with climate, environmental and other data on the drivers of disease emergence and spread. This evidence will inform WOAH’s work on climate change and One Health, and will contribute to WOAH publications and to peer-reviewed scientific articles. The overall mission of the intern will therefore be to update and extend the review of the evidence on climate change and animal health, to build an integrated long-term dataset that combines WOAH animal disease data with climate, environmental and other covariates, and to apply robust statistical and spatio-temporal methods to quantify the associations between climatic drivers and changes in the occurrence, seasonality and geographical distribution of WOAH-listed diseases. Objectives The objectives of this project are: – To carry out a systematic or scoping review of the impact of climate change and climate variability on animal health, building on and extending the review by Lavarello-Schettini et al. (2026), for example by covering the most recent literature, additional bibliographic databases and grey literature, and by mapping the climate-sensitive diseases, mechanisms and drivers identified. – To build a harmonised, analysis-ready dataset of WAHIS animal disease data for the period 2005–2026, by disease, host category, country/territory, sub-national level where available, and time. If data quality allows, to extend this dataset back to 1996 using HandiStatus II data (1996–2004), and back to 1980 by extracting historical data from WOAH publications available in PDF format, using AI-assisted and other data extraction tools, with a documented validation of the quality of the extracted data. – To identify, collect and harmonise the climate, environmental and other covariates that may affect disease emergence and spread (see indicative list below), at spatial and temporal resolutions consistent with the animal health data. – To quantify the associations between climatic variables (including anomalies and extreme events) and animal disease outcomes using appropriate statistical and spatio-temporal models, accounting for confounding factors and for the heterogeneity of surveillance and reporting over time and across countries. – To identify the diseases, host categories and regions most sensitive to climate, and to document the whole work in a reproducible analytical pipeline and in scientific outputs. Indicative covariates to be considered The final selection of covariates will be informed by the review and agreed with the supervisors. They may include: – Climate: temperature (mean, minimum, maximum and anomalies), precipitation, humidity, drought indices (e.g. SPEI), extreme weather events (heatwaves, floods, droughts) and large-scale climate oscillations (e.g. ENSO, Indian Ocean Dipole, NAO), from sources such as ERA5/Copernicus, CHIRPS, CRU TS or WorldClim. – Environment and ecology: land cover and land-use change, deforestation, vegetation indices (e.g. NDVI), surface water and wetlands, elevation, vector distribution or habitat suitability, and wild bird migratory routes. – Animal populations and production: livestock and poultry densities (e.g. FAO Gridded Livestock of the World, FAOSTAT), production systems and wildlife distribution. – Human and socio-economic factors: human population density, trade in live animals and animal products, economic indicators, armed conflicts and population displacement. – Surveillance and reporting factors: capacity of Veterinary Services (e.g. PVS Pathway indicators), reporting compliance and completeness, and changes in disease listing and reporting systems over time, to account for reporting bias. |
| Missions and activitiesInception: material and methods – A document describing the methodological approach, covering the review protocol, the animal health and covariate data sources, the extraction strategy for historical data, and the analytical methods retained, with the rationale for their selection. – A list of the data, accesses and infrastructure needed to apply the methodology selected. – A work plan setting out the timeline for the deliverables. Systematic or scoping review – A review protocol following recognised guidelines (e.g. PRISMA 2020 or PRISMA-ScR, Joanna Briggs Institute methodology), with a search strategy and eligibility criteria building on Lavarello-Schettini et al. (2026), registered where relevant (e.g. OSF or PROSPERO). – A documented database of the screened and included studies, with the data extracted and, where relevant, a critical appraisal of their quality. – A synthesis report and an evidence gap map identifying climate-sensitive animal diseases, mechanisms and drivers, informing the selection of diseases and covariates for the quantitative analysis. Construction of the long-term animal health dataset – A characterisation of the WAHIS data available for 2005–2026, covering volume, granularity, temporal and geographical coverage, and reporting completeness, by disease. If data allow, the integration of Handistatus II data (1996–2004), harmonised with WAHIS data (disease and pathogen nomenclature, host categories, changes in countries/territories and in reporting systems). If data allow, a feasibility assessment and a documented, reproducible pipeline for the extraction of historical data since 1980 from PDF documents (e.g. OCR, table extraction, extraction assisted by large language models), including a validation against a manually verified sample and accuracy metrics. – A clean, documented and reproducible Masterfile of the long-term animal health data, with metadata and a data dictionary. Climate, environmental and other covariates – An inventory of the covariates and data sources considered, with the justification of their selection. The extraction and aggregation of the selected covariates at the spatial and temporal units of the animal health data (e.g. country/territory, sub-national level, outbreak location; month, semester, year). – An integrated analysis dataset linking the animal health data and the covariates. Quantitative analysis – A descriptive analysis of long-term trends in the occurrence, seasonality and geographical distribution of selected diseases. Statistical and spatio-temporal models quantifying the associations between climatic variables, anomalies and extreme events and animal disease outcomes, accounting for confounding factors and reporting bias, with sensitivity analyses. – An identification and ranking of the diseases, host categories and regions most sensitive to climate and, where relevant and time allows, an exploration of future risk under climate change scenarios. – A single version-controlled repository containing the documented code for data extraction, data management and analysis, with automated reports (e.g. Quarto) allowing the analyses to be re-run on updated data. Final reporting – A final report summarising the work carried out, the results obtained, the limitations identified and recommendations for climate-aware animal health surveillance and future work. – One or more draft scientific manuscripts for submission to peer-reviewed journals. – Contributions (text, figures and key messages) to WOAH publications and communication products. – A presentation of the results to WOAH staff. |
| Requirements |
| Qualifications and ExperienceRequired QualificationsEducation: currently enrolled in, or recently graduated from, a master’s degree (or equivalent) in Epidemiology, Veterinary Public Health, Biostatistics, Statistics, Data Science, Environmental or Climate Science, or Geography/GIS, or a degree in Veterinary Medicine or Life Sciences with a strong quantitative component. No previous professional experience is required. However, the intern should have gained some relevant experience through coursework, an academic project, or a previous internship: – Statistical analysis of epidemiological, ecological or environmental data, including regression models (e.g. generalised linear and mixed models for count data) and time series analysis.– Handling of spatial data and GIS (vector and raster data), and of climate or environmental datasets (e.g. NetCDF, satellite-derived products).– Conducting or contributing to a systematic, scoping or structured literature review.– Writing reproducible analytical code; basic scripting skills for data extraction or process automation.– Ability to clearly document analytical methods and communicate results in writing, including scientific writing.– Familiarity with spatio-temporal or Bayesian modelling (e.g. INLA), ecological niche modelling or causal inference methods would be an asset.– Experience in extracting data from PDF or scanned documents (e.g. OCR, table extraction, use of large language models or other AI tools) would be an asset.– Knowledge of climate change and health, One Health, epidemiology or health surveillance would be an asset; knowledge of animal health surveillance and of transboundary and vector-borne animal diseases would be an additional asset. Required SkillsTechnical SkillsProgramming in R and/or Python; spatial data analysis (e.g. sf, terra, xarray, Google Earth Engine or equivalent); querying of relational databases (SQL); use of version control (Git); reproducible reporting (e.g. Quarto or R Markdown); use of reference management and review screening tools (e.g. Zotero, Rayyan, Covidence); familiarity with tools for data extraction from PDF documents; good data management practices; and the ability to document and structure code. Additional SkillsGood computational, organisational and interpersonal skills; good communication skills in English; flexibility and the capacity to work to short deadlines and deliver on schedule. As historical WOAH publications are partly in French and Spanish, a working knowledge of French and/or Spanish would be an asset. The intern will ensure that all information handled during the internship is treated with the highest level of confidentiality and that sensitive information is never disclosed. All information handled or collected during this internship, including all code produced, remains under WOAH’s ownership. |
| Additional Information |
| Working conditionsFull-time position based at WOAH Headquarters in Paris. – Salary: 715 EUR / month – Duration: 6 months – Start date: as soon as possible – Location: WOAH Headquarters, 12 rue de Prony 75017 Paris, France Eligibility and start date– This internship requires an agreement with the student’s academic institution.– The selection of the candidate and the internship start date will depend on the suitability of the candidate’s profile for the position, as well as on the operational and funding constraints associated with the internship. – The selected candidate must be able to commence the internship in person in Paris, France, no later than December 14th, 2026. |
| General InformationWOAH places high value on a multicultural and positive work environment. WOAH is an equal opportunity employer and welcomes all qualified candidates, irrespective of their origin, gender, opinions or beliefs. If you are interested in the position, please complete your application online at the latest by November 15th, 2026.All applications will be reviewed after the closing date of the publication |
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