JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Flooding in Ho Chi Minh City threatens both the conditions that keep people healthy and the services needed when those conditions fail. Land subsidence, linked to groundwater withdrawal and urban development, adds urgency because uneven sinking keeps changing where flooding reaches. Rising seas and drainage constraints further complicate protection. This Viewpoint argues that infectious disease prevention and continuity of care should be stated objectives of the city's flood-warning investments. Local studies associate flooding with delayed changes in dengue incidence and heavy rainfall with intestinal disease admissions within days. Health preparedness therefore cannot end when the water recedes. Disruption may also reduce access to care and reporting, making apparent declines in diseases difficult to interpret. The city has developed flood-monitoring technologies alongside electronic disease reporting, geographic information systems, citizen risk reporting, and access to national dengue forecasts. The next priority is to test whether connecting these capabilities to defined, funded health decisions improves prevention and response. The proposed approach combines regularly updated exposure assessments, verification of threats to water supplies and health services, locally adapted disease follow-up, and checks for whether illness is being missed during disruption. Each warning needs a responsible recipient, an available response, and a record of what happened. Integration should begin with decisions that earlier information can change. Each connection should then be evaluated against usual practice, including its workload, false alerts, costs, and equitable reach. For other sinking coastal cities, the transferable principle is to organize digital surveillance around what health services can actually deliver.