 |
|
Objectives |
|
|
Project SummaryOur team, composed of natural and social scientists, will use an innovative, integrative approach to investigate the human demographic, socioeconomic, and landscape processes underlying the epidemiology of malaria in the Iquitos region of the Peruvian Amazon. Data collected will be correlated through geographic information systems (GIS) in order to model infection risk. The central objective of this research is to examine the ecological and social drivers of infectious disease transmission and maintenance among different land use strategies within a social matrix encompassing rural, urban and peri-urban communities found in the Iquitos region.
This is an ideal setting to examine three primary research hypotheses, which are: 1) Peri-urban settlements serve as reservoirs for malaria, 2) Risk of malaria infection in rural or urban community increases with the level of mobility and changes in residence of peri-urban inhabitants, and 3) The malaria epidemic and subsequent endemism in Iquitos are, in part, the result of development interventions, such as proliferation of fishponds built to alleviate poverty.
The team will utilize an analytical framework that integrates a spatial-temporal analysis of human mobility and land use, with an agent-based simulation model (ABS). Analysis will combine remote sensing information with data from questionnaires, and will be used to assess risk factors for malaria and the spatial distribution of disease. Household surveys will record ecological disturbance created by development activities and will establish the degree and extent of mobility at the household level. Spatial analysis will integrate demography, epidemiology, ecological changes, and socioeconomic evidences that are fundamental to understanding the complexity of malaria risk in the context of human migration. The overall purpose of the ABS will be to understand how malaria epidemics arise, how malaria becomes endemic, and to provide projections on the circumstances under which the disease will give rise to an epidemic and/or become endemic. Simulation results will be tested using geographically weighted regression. A grid-based model will then organize the data and identify relevant factors in malaria dispersal. The team's integrated methodological and comparative analysis approach through modeling with data collected systematically at multiple scales will give the opportunity to examine both the fine-scale and broader regional patterns of malaria transmission and prevalence in Amazonian communities. Because of the team members' participation in other international research, development, and educational efforts, the objectives, methods and analyses of this project are streamlined to parallel those of other efforts in the international and regional scientific communities. An outstanding feature of the project is the interdisciplinary and international approach requiring collaboration between US scientists and Peruvian scientists and technicians in the application of scientifically sound and multi-disciplinary approaches to studying the linkages of human ecology and disease systems. Throughout the duration of the project, researchers, students, and community members will learn to identify, evaluate, and monitor the social and landscape processes of malaria transmission. The post-doc and graduate students will participate in all phases of the project, from data gathering and analysis to modeling. This unique training will ensure the continued attention to infectious disease research, and mechanisms of transmission and maintenance. Dissemination of results will occur in peer-reviewed journals in English and Spanish, and will be available through an open access website and database. This will ultimately lead to a better understanding of these mechanisms and better policy implementation in the face of development and human mobility. |
||||||||||
