| dc.description.abstract |
While many studies have characterized mobility patterns and disease dynamics of settled
populations, few have focused on more mobile populations. Highly mobile groups are often
at higher disease risk due to their regular movement that may increase the variability of their
environments, reduce their access to health care, and limit the number of intervention strate-
gies suitable for their lifestyles. Quantifying the movements and their associated disease
risks will be key to developing interventions more suitable for mobile populations. Turkana,
Kenya is an ideal setting to characterize these relationships. While the vast, semi-arid
county has a large mobile population (>60%) and was recently shown to have endemic
malaria, the relationship between mobility and malaria risk in this region has not yet been
defined. Here, we worked with 250 semi-nomadic households from four communities in
Central Turkana to 1) characterize mobility patterns of travelers and 2) test the hypothesis
that semi-nomadic individuals are at greater risk of malaria exposure when migrating with
their herds than when staying at their semi-permanent settlements. Participants provided
medical and travel histories, demographics, and a dried blood spot for malaria testing before
and after the travel period. Further, a subset of travelers was given GPS loggers to docu-
ment their routes. Four travel patterns emerged from the logger data, Long Term, Transient,
Day trip, and Static, with only Long Term and Transient trips being associated with malaria
cases detected in individuals who carried GPS devices. After completing their trips, travelers
had a higher prevalence of malaria than those who remained at the household (9.2% vs
4.4%), regardless of gender and age. These findings highlight the need to develop interven-
tion strategies amenable to mobile lifestyles that can ultimately help prevent the transmis-
sion of malaria. |
en_US |