Vector-borne diseases (VBDs) impose a heavy burden on vulnerable populations. Although vulnerability has increasingly gained ground as a promising concept in VBD literature in recent years, little emphasis has been placed on developing methods for quantifying and mapping it. Integrated spatial indicators are a powerful means for grasping the complexity of vulnerability in a spatially explicit manner, and translating it into policy-relevant information. Based on the ‘vulnerability cube’ concept, this paper presents lessons learnt from a benchmarking exercise of three spatial vulnerability assessments. The assessments were carried out for two different diseases, malaria and dengue fever, at three different spatial scales (local, national, and regional), using three different spatial reporting units (administrative units, pixels, and geons). We found that the choice of the spatial scale and the reporting unit for modelling, visualizing, and communicating vulnerability to VBDs has both conceptual and methodological/practical implications that developers and users of vulnerability indices should be aware of.
