CNH: The Coupled Human Health and Environmental Dynamics of Schistosomiasis

人类活动造成的生态破坏可以直接影响传染病和人类健康，但公共卫生运动很少转向生态解决办法来减轻传染病风险，而是倾向于传统方法，如疫苗开发或药物治疗。该研究项目将对一种新的疾病控制策略进行实验调查，该策略包括重新引入本地对虾，以确定它们是否有助于减少蜗牛的流行，蜗牛是传播血吸虫病的寄生虫的宿主，血吸虫病是世界上最普遍的寄生虫病之一。该项目将检验这样一种观点，即重新引入本地对虾作为捕食者，将修复被大坝建设破坏的水生食物网，并通过减少寄生虫的流行，显著减少血吸虫病的传播。该项目将调查对虾恢复是否以及如何可持续，并为沿河居民增加重要的蛋白质食物来源和市场资源。该项目将提供关于人类和自然力量改变疾病传播模式的复杂相互作用的新认识。它将增强一系列领域的知识，包括营养生态学、流行病学、水产养殖、经济学和其他社会科学以及数学建模。因此，该项目将在如何加强生物多样性、如何改善人类健康以及本地对虾水产养殖如何为农村市场经济带来效益等方面提供新的见解。人们在使用开放水域系统洗澡、洗衣服和设备、照料牲畜、耕作或玩耍时，受感染蜗牛的寄生虫传播血吸虫病，已导致约2.2亿人感染，世界各地每年估计有20万人死于血吸虫病。超过95%的感染发生在非洲，这个项目将以西非的塞内加尔河生态系统为基础，但这个项目将提供基本的和应用的见解，关于自然和人类系统耦合的动态，这些系统与疾病在其他地区的河流和其他水体中的传播有关，该项目还将为博士后研究人员以及研究生和本科生提供特殊教育和培训机会。本项目由美国国家科学基金会自然与人类系统耦合动力学（CNH）项目资助。该项目将由来自许多不同学科的研究人员组成一个团队进行。他们将进行实验，在用水地点圈养对虾，并将疾病传播情况与对照地点进行比较，以确定对虾对蜗牛数量和人类感染率的影响。对虾的重新引入将与药物治疗相结合，并将与经济模型、人类行为考虑以及蜗牛和人类感染监测相结合进行分析。来自项目这些组成部分的信息将与数学模型进行综合。该项目将促进对虾养殖技术的发展，作为生态系统恢复和增加天然蜗牛捕食者的一部分，对虾的放养和捕捞战略将被建模，以寻求最佳方法，最大限度地提高公众健康，同时提供营养和市场激励，以维持对虾的数量。

Ecological damage caused by human activity can directly influence infectious diseases and human health, but public health campaigns rarely turn to ecological solutions to mitigate infectious disease risk, instead favoring traditional approaches, such as vaccine development or drug treatment. This research project will conduct an experimental investigation of a novel disease-control strategy that incorporates the reintroduction of native prawns to determine whether they might help reduce the prevalence of the snails that host the parasitic worms for that spread schistosomiasis, which is one of the most prevalent parasitic diseases in the world. The project will test the idea that reintroduction of the native prawns as predators will repair the aquatic food web that has been disrupted by dam construction and significantly reduce transmission of schistosomiasis by reducing the prevalence of the parasites. The project will investigate whether and how prawn restoration can be sustainable as well as add an important protein food source and market resource for the people living along the rivers. The project will provide new understanding regarding the complex interaction of human and natural forces to alter patterns of disease transmission. It will enhance knowledge across a range of fields, including trophic ecology, epidemiology, aquaculture, economics, and other social sciences as well as mathematical modeling. The project therefore will provide new insights regarding how biodiversity may be enhanced, how human health may improve, and how native prawn aquaculture may provide benefits to the rural market economy. The transmission of schistosomiasis by parasites from infected snails when people use open water systems for bathing, washing clothes and equipment, tending livestock, farming, or playing has led to the infection of about 220 million people, with an estimated 200,000 deaths per year from schistosomiasis around the world. More than 95 percent of the infections are occur in Africa, and this project will be based in the Senegal River ecosystem of western Africa, but the project will provide both basic and applied insights regarding the dynamics of coupled natural and human systems related to the transmission of diseases in rivers and other water bodies in other locales, including many in the U.S. The project also will provide special education and training opportunities for post-doctoral researchers as well as graduate and undergraduate students. This project is supported by the NSF Dynamics of Coupled Natural and Human Systems (CNH) Program.The project will be conducted by researchers constituting a team drawn from many different disciplines. They will conduct experiments where prawns will be enclosed at water-use sites and disease transmission will be compared with control sites to determine the effect of prawns on snail abundance and on human infection rates. Reintroduction of the prawns will be combined with drug treatments and will be analyzed with economic models, consideration of human behavior, and monitoring of snail and human infections. The information from these components of the project will be synthesized with mathematical models. This project will contribute to the technology of cultivation of the prawns as part of the ecosystem recovery and augmentation of natural snail predators, and prawn-stocking and harvest strategies will be modeled to seek the best approach to maximize public health while also offering a nutritional and market incentive to sustain prawn populations.