Joseph Brown

Assistant Professor
Georgia Institute of Technology
Environmental Engineering, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering

About the Lecture

We are conducting a controlled, before-and-after (CBA) trial to estimate the health impacts of an urban sanitation infrastructure expansion in Maputo, Mozambique. The intervention consists of pour-flush latrines (to septic tank) shared by multiple households in compounds or household clusters.  We are measuring objective health outcomes in approximately 1000 children (450 children with household access to interventions, 550 controls using existing shared private latrines in poor sanitary conditions), at two time points: immediately before latrines are built and at follow-up after 12 months. The primary outcome is combined prevalence of enteric infections among children under 5 years of age. Secondary outcome measures include soil transmitted helminth (STH) re-infection in children following baseline de-worming, prevalence of reported diarrheal disease, and stool biomarkers of environmental enteric dysfunction (EED).  We are using exposure assessment, fecal source tracking, and microbial transmission modeling to examine whether and how routes of exposure for diarrheagenic pathogens and STHs change following introduction of effective sanitation. This is the first controlled trial of non-sewerage sanitation in an urban setting and among the first rigorous controlled trials of sanitation on gut infections. Although the trial is in progress (through February 2017), this presentation will cover baseline and preliminary endline data.

Lunch will be served at 11:30.

About the Speaker

Joe Brown PhD PE is an assistant professor in environmental engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering.  His previous appointment (2010 – 2014) was at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, where he served as a lecturer in the Department of Disease Control, Faculty of Infectious and Tropical Diseases.  Brown earned a Ph.D. in Environmental Sciences and Engineering in the Gillings School of Global Public Health at the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill (2007); an MPhil in  Environment and Development, University of Cambridge (2003), where he was a Gates Cambridge Scholar; and B.S. in Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Alabama (2001).  Brown’s research and teaching interests are at the intersection of environmental engineering and public health, including environmental health microbiology, health impact assessments of water and sanitation technologies and infrastructure, bioaerosols and pathogen transport, and low-cost sensor networks for water quality monitoring.  His work currently spans four continents including active research projects in Cambodia, Zambia, Malawi, Pakistan, India, Mozambique, and the Southeastern USA. He holds professional licensure as an engineer (PE) in North Carolina and Alabama, USA. 

This event is sponsored by Duke Civil and Environmental Engineering.