The Impact of Land Use Change on Transmission Potential Networks and Disease Spread in Rural Madagascar

Faculty:

Topics:

Countries:

Sponsors:

  • National Institutes of Health

Collaborators:

  • Steven Goodman, Vahatra Association (Madagascar),
  • Voahangy Soarimalala, Vahatra Association (Madagascar),
  • Pablo Tortosa, Institut de recherche pour le développement (IRD, La Réunion),
  • Peter Mucha, University of North Carolina,
  • Hillary Young, University of California, Santa Barbara,
  • Shai Pilosof, Ben Gurion University (Israel)

Start Date:

End Date:

  • Ongoing

The Impact of Land Use Change on Transmission Potential Networks and Disease Spread in Rural Madagascar

Anthropogenic land use alters ecological communities and impacts transmission of infectious diseases, including zoonotic diseases to humans. This project aims to model the transmission pathways for infectious disease in relation to land use and health disparities.  We are collecting ecological and socioeconomic data from different environments in rural Madagascar and assessing transmission correlates using multilayer networks. We are especially interested in identifying the socioeconomic factors that lead some people to be more connected to wildlife and to one another, an area that we term One Health Disparities. We will test whether these networks predict infection with multiple pathogens, including Leptospira, Yersinia, Hantaviruses, Rickettsia, and gastrointestinal helminths.

Last updated on March 24, 2021