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Naserrudin NA, Culleton R, Pau Lin PY, Baumann SE, Hod R, Jeffree MS, Ahmed K, Hassan MR. Generating Trust in Participatory Research on Plasmodium knowlesi Malaria: A Study with Rural Community Gatekeepers during the COVID-19 Pandemic. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH AND PUBLIC HEALTH 2022; 19:ijerph192315764. [PMID: 36497837 PMCID: PMC9737837 DOI: 10.3390/ijerph192315764] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/29/2022] [Revised: 11/15/2022] [Accepted: 11/23/2022] [Indexed: 06/01/2023]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Plasmodium knowlesi malaria is a zoonotic infection that affects rural communities in South East Asia. Although the epidemiology of the disease has been extensively researched, the voices of individuals within affected communities often go unheard. Here, we describe a study that explores the importance of gatekeepers in conducting research among rural communities, their perspectives on the challenges encountered when attempting to avoid malaria infection, and their views on participatory research. METHODS Between 1 November 2021 and 28 February 2022, we conducted a study in Kudat district, Sabah, using a multi-method design. All participants consented to the study, which included health care workers (HCWs) (n = 5), community leaders (n = 8), and faith leaders (n = 1). We conducted interviews, transect walks, and observations with gatekeepers to ensure data trustworthiness. All interviews were conducted in the Sabah Malay dialect. The sessions were audio- and video-recorded, transcribed into English and analyzed using thematic analysis. RESULTS Between 2017 and 2021, the number of cases of P. knowlesi malaria detected in humans ranged from 35 to 87 in villages under the care of the Lotong primary health care clinic. The challenges in controlling malaria include social norms, lifestyles, socioeconomic factors, environmental factors, and limitations of basic resources. Critical discussions regarding participation with the gatekeepers identified that face-to-face interviews were preferable to online discussions, and influenced willingness to participate in future research. CONCLUSION This study was conducted among village gatekeepers during the COVID-19 pandemic and generated information to drive methodological changes, opening up new ideas by sharing perspectives on challenges in P. knowlesi malaria control among vulnerable communities. The study generated trust in the community and expanded knowledge regarding participation that is critical for future community-based studies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nurul Athirah Naserrudin
- Department of Community Health, Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur 56000, Malaysia
- Borneo Medical and Health Research Centre, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universiti Malaysia Sabah, Kota Kinabalu 88400, Malaysia
- Sabah State Health Department, Ministry of Health, Kota Kinabalu 88590, Malaysia
| | - Richard Culleton
- Division of Molecular Parasitology, Proteo-Science Center, Ehime University, Toon, Ehime, Matsuyama 791-0295, Japan
| | - Pauline Yong Pau Lin
- Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Universiti Malaysia Sabah, Kota Kinabalu 88400, Malaysia
| | - Sara Elizabeth Baumann
- Department of Behavioral and Community Health Sciences, School of Public Health, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15261, USA
| | - Rozita Hod
- Department of Community Health, Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur 56000, Malaysia
| | - Mohammad Saffree Jeffree
- Borneo Medical and Health Research Centre, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universiti Malaysia Sabah, Kota Kinabalu 88400, Malaysia
- Department of Public Health Medicine, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universiti Malaysia Sabah, Kota Kinabalu 88400, Malaysia
| | - Kamruddin Ahmed
- Borneo Medical and Health Research Centre, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universiti Malaysia Sabah, Kota Kinabalu 88400, Malaysia
- Department of Public Health Medicine, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universiti Malaysia Sabah, Kota Kinabalu 88400, Malaysia
- Department of Pathobiology and Medical Diagnostics, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universiti Malaysia Sabah, Kota Kinabalu 88400, Malaysia
| | - Mohd Rohaizat Hassan
- Department of Community Health, Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur 56000, Malaysia
- Borneo Medical and Health Research Centre, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universiti Malaysia Sabah, Kota Kinabalu 88400, Malaysia
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La campaña de erradicación de la malaria en Colombia, 1959-1979. BIOMÉDICA 2022; 42:264-277. [PMID: 35867920 PMCID: PMC9431989 DOI: 10.7705/biomedica.6250] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/26/2021] [Indexed: 11/21/2022]
Abstract
Introducción. A mediados de la década de 1950, el país adoptó e implementó la Campaña de Erradicación de la Malaria (CEM), sin que hasta ahora se haya hecho su evaluación.Objetivo. Evaluar los resultados alcanzados en las fases de ataque y consolidación de la campaña de erradicación de la malaria en Colombia, entre 1959 y 1979.Materiales y métodos. Se hizo un estudio descriptivo y retrospectivo de los resultados “malariométricos” y operacionales de la CEM en Colombia entre 1959 y 1979 a partir de los datos recopilados de los archivos del Ministerio de Salud Pública. Se utilizaron los criterios establecidos por la Organización Mundial de la Salud (OMS) relacionados con las fases de un programa de erradicación de malaria. Se almacenó, tabuló y analizó la información, y se elaboraron y aplicaron indicadores malariométricos.Resultados. En el periodo de erradicación a corto plazo (1959-1969), durante el primer año de la fase de ataque (1959), se alcanzó una reducción de la transmisión del 94 % (4.172) y, en el último año (1962), una disminución del 88 % (8.426) en la carga acumulada de casos comparada con el promedio anual de la década del 50 (71.031); estos bajos niveles de transmisión se mantuvieron hasta finales de 1969. En el periodo de intensificación del control para la erradicación (1970-1979), se produjo un incremento de la endemia y resurgió la transmisión epidémica. Debido a problemas financieros que afectaron la regularidad de la operación para mantener los resultados, y no habiéndose logrado la interrupción de la transmisión, se observó un resurgimiento de casos en las fases de ataque y consolidación.Conclusiones. La campaña no logró la meta de interrupción de la transmisión de la malaria en el territorio nacional, pero sí se consiguió un acentuado control en áreas de mediana y baja intensidad.
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Guglielmo F, Ranson H, Sagnon N, Jones C. The issue is not 'compliance': exploring exposure to malaria vector bites through social dynamics in Burkina Faso. Anthropol Med 2021; 28:508-525. [PMID: 33970705 PMCID: PMC7613283 DOI: 10.1080/13648470.2021.1884185] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/24/2022]
Abstract
Credited with averting almost 68% of new cases between 2000 and 2015, insecticide-treated bednets (ITNs) are one of the most efficacious malaria-prevention tools. Their effectiveness, however, depends on if and how they are used, making 'compliance' (and the social factors affecting it) a key area of interest for research on malaria transmission. This article situates the notion of compliance with 'bednet use' within everyday practices in an area of south-west Burkina Faso with high malaria transmission. By drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 2017 and 2018, it critically describes the precarious micro-environments that foreground bednet use-from gender and age to the means of (re)production of social and labour conditions-and assesses the bednets' effectiveness and community uptake. Bednet use stems from concrete, ordinary dynamics that interweave only apparently at the margins of the time individuals most need to be protected by a net. This work conceptualises 'compliance' beyond binary indicators of intervention uptake and locates 'use' as the result of contingent assemblages.
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Affiliation(s)
- Federica Guglielmo
- Vector Biology Department, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, Liverpool, UK
| | - Hilary Ranson
- Vector Biology Department, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, Liverpool, UK
| | - N'falé Sagnon
- Centre National de Recherche et Formation sur le Paludisme, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso
| | - Caroline Jones
- KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Research Programme, Kilifi, Kenya.,Centre for Tropical Medicine and Global Health, Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
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Jaiteh F, Ribera JM, Masunaga Y, Okebe J, D'Alessandro U, Balen J, Achan J, Gerrets R, Peeters Grietens K. Complexities in Defining the Unit of Intervention for Reactive Community-Based Malaria Treatment in the Gambia. Front Public Health 2021; 9:601152. [PMID: 33718317 PMCID: PMC7952428 DOI: 10.3389/fpubh.2021.601152] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/31/2020] [Accepted: 02/02/2021] [Indexed: 11/24/2022] Open
Abstract
With significant declines in malaria, infections are increasingly clustered in households, or groups of households where malaria transmission is higher than in surrounding household/villages. To decrease transmission in such cases, reactive interventions target household members of clinical malaria cases, with the intervention unit (e.g., the "household/s") derived from an epidemiological and operational perspective. A lack of unanimity regarding the spatial range of the intervention unit calls for greater importance to be placed on social context in conceptualizing the appropriate unit. A novel malaria elimination strategy based on reactive treatment was recently evaluated by a cluster randomized trial in a low transmission setting in The Gambia. Transdisciplinary research was used to assess and improve the effectiveness of the intervention which consisted, among others, of reflecting on whether the household was the most adequate unit of analysis. The intervention was piloted on the smallest treatment unit possible and was further adapted following a better understanding of the social and epidemiological context. Intervention units defined according to (i) shared sleeping spaces and (ii) household membership, showed substantial limitations as it was not possible to define them clearly and they were extremely variable within the study setting. Incorporating local definitions and community preference in the trial design led to the appropriate intervention unit-the compound-defined as an enclosed space containing one or several households belonging to the same extended patrilineal family. Our study demonstrates the appropriateness of using transdisciplinary research for investigating alternative intervention units that are better tailored to reactive treatment approaches.
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Affiliation(s)
- Fatou Jaiteh
- Medical Research Council Unit the Gambia at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Banjul, Gambia
- Medical Anthropology Unit, Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp, Belgium
- Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, Amsterdam Institute of Social Science Research, Amsterdam, Netherlands
| | | | - Yoriko Masunaga
- Medical Anthropology Unit, Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp, Belgium
- Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, Amsterdam Institute of Social Science Research, Amsterdam, Netherlands
| | - Joseph Okebe
- Medical Research Council Unit the Gambia at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Banjul, Gambia
- Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, Liverpool, United Kingdom
| | - Umberto D'Alessandro
- Medical Research Council Unit the Gambia at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Banjul, Gambia
- London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, United Kingdom
| | - Julie Balen
- School of Health and Related Research (ScHARR), The University of Sheffield, Sheffield, United Kingdom
| | - Jane Achan
- Medical Research Council Unit the Gambia at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Banjul, Gambia
- Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, Liverpool, United Kingdom
| | - Rene Gerrets
- Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, Amsterdam Institute of Social Science Research, Amsterdam, Netherlands
| | - Koen Peeters Grietens
- Medical Anthropology Unit, Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp, Belgium
- PASS Suisse, Neuchâtel, Switzerland
- School of Tropical Medicine and Global Health, Nagasaki University, Nagasaki, Japan
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Abstract
Goudebou refugee camp in northern Burkina Faso has emerged as a testing ground for international efforts to find market-based solutions to the delivery of basic energy services in humanitarian contexts. This article follows energy researchers, humanitarian practitioners and entrepreneurs as they work to capture a market for energy here by mapping consumer demand, generating evidence that can prove the willingness of refugees to pay and securing contracts for the supply of solar powered technologies. Their efforts reveal the moral and material logics of humanitarian interventions in the field of energy, and point to the continued significance of ‘crisis’ for the making of Africa’s energy politics, subjects and futures.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jamie Cross
- Social Anthropology and Development, University of Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
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Erikson SL. Cell Phones ≠ Self and Other Problems with Big Data Detection and Containment during Epidemics. Med Anthropol Q 2018; 32:315-339. [PMID: 29520829 PMCID: PMC6175342 DOI: 10.1111/maq.12440] [Citation(s) in RCA: 19] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/13/2017] [Revised: 02/19/2018] [Accepted: 02/20/2018] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
Abstract
Evidence from Sierra Leone reveals the significant limitations of big data in disease detection and containment efforts. Early in the 2014-2016 Ebola epidemic in West Africa, media heralded HealthMap's ability to detect the outbreak from newsfeeds. Later, big data-specifically, call detail record data collected from millions of cell phones-was hyped as useful for stopping the disease by tracking contagious people. It did not work. In this article, I trace the causes of big data's containment failures. During epidemics, big data experiments can have opportunity costs: namely, forestalling urgent response. Finally, what counts as data during epidemics must include that coming from anthropological technologies because they are so useful for detection and containment.
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D'Souza BJ, Parkhurst JO. When "Good Evidence" Is Not Enough: A Case of Global Malaria Policy Development. GLOBAL CHALLENGES (HOBOKEN, NJ) 2018; 2:1700077. [PMID: 31565347 PMCID: PMC6607113 DOI: 10.1002/gch2.201700077] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/29/2017] [Revised: 11/13/2017] [Indexed: 06/08/2023]
Abstract
This paper presents findings from a case study of two different policy development processes within the WHO's malaria department. By comparing the policy processes for the interventions of intermittent preventive treatment in infants versus children, the findings suggest that "good evidence" from a technical perspective, though important, is not sufficient to ensure universal agreement and uptake of recommendations. An analysis of 29 key informant interviews finds that evidence also needs to be relevant to the policy question being asked, and that expert actors retain a concern over the legitimacy of the process by which technical evidence is brought to bear in the policy development process. Previous findings from the field of sustainable development, that evidence must be credible, salient, and legitimate to be accepted by the public, appears to apply equally within scientific advisory committees. While the WHO has principally focused on technical criteria for evidence inclusion in its policy development processes, this study suggests that the design and functionality of its advisory bodies must also enable transparent, responsive, and accepted processes of evidence review to ensure that these bodies are effective in producing advice that engenders change in policy and practice.
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Affiliation(s)
- Bianca J. D'Souza
- Department of Global Health and DevelopmentLondon School of Hygiene and Tropical MedicineKeppel StreetLondonWC1E 7HTUK
| | - Justin O. Parkhurst
- Department of Health PolicyLondon School of Economics and Political ScienceHoughton StreetLondonWC2A 2AEUK
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Abstract
In biomedical, public health, and popular discourses, the 'end of AIDS' has emerged as a predominant way to understand the future of HIV research and prevention. This approach is predicated on structuring and responding to HIV in ways that underscore its presumed lifelong nature. In this article, I examine the phenomenon of HIV chronicity that undergirds the 'end of AIDS' discourse. In particular, I explore how the logic of HIV chronicity, induced by technological advances in treatment and global financial and political investments, intensifies long-term uncertainty and prolonged crisis. Focusing on over 10 years of anthropological and public health research in the United States, I argue that HIV chronicity, and subsequently, the 'end of AIDS' discourse, obscure the on-going HIV crisis in particular global communities, especially among marginalised and ageing populations who live in under-resourced areas. By tracing the 'end of AIDS' discourse in my field sites and in other global locations, I describe how HIV chronicity signals a continuing global crisis and persistent social precarity rather than a 'break' with a hopeless past or a promising future free from AIDS.
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Abstract
Today, malaria prevention hinges upon two domestic interventions: insecticide-treated bed nets and indoor residual spraying. As mosquitoes grow resistant to these tools, however, novel approaches to vector control have become a priority area of malaria research and development. Spatial repellency, a volumetric mode of action that seeks to reduce disease transmission by creating an atmosphere inimical to mosquitoes, represents one way forward. Drawing from research that sought to develop new repellent chemicals in conversation with users from sub-Saharan Africa and the United States, we consider the implications of a non-insecticidal paradigm of vector control for how we understand the political ecology of malaria.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ann H. Kelly
- Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, King’s College London, Strand, London, United Kingdom
| | | | - Sarah J. Moore
- Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland
- Environmental Health and Ecological Sciences Thematic Group, Ifakara Health Institute, Bagamoyo, Tanzania
- Health Interventions Unit, Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, Basel, Switzerland
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