Doctoral Dissertation Research: Social and environmental drivers of dengue risk across urban landscapes

该项目调查了城市中导致登革热等蚊媒疾病的社会和环境条件。这项工作的动机是世界各地城市化的惊人速度，以及城市环境在维持蚊子种群和推动疾病传播方面发挥的复杂作用。尽管登革热对公共卫生具有重要意义，但人们对城市结构、人口密度和人类行为等因素如何共同影响疾病风险知之甚少。为了检查这些因素，这些科学家将从各种来源收集信息，如公共卫生记录、家庭蚊子收集、卫星图像和社区对话。实地工作将在登革热高发的城市环境中进行。这项工作是与当地卫生部门合作的一部分，因此研究结果将支持正在进行的疾病预防战略。作为博士论文研究进步奖，该项目将提供支持，使有前途的学生建立一个独立的研究生涯。目前还没有广泛可用的登革热疫苗或有效的治疗方案。因此，疾病预防以控制蚊子数量为中心。科学家们提出，为了有效控制蚊子数量和疾病传播，必须更好地了解城市中影响蚊子生态、人类接触蚊子和病毒传播的社会和环境动态。这个项目问(1)是什么因素导致不同城市登革热发病率的差异；(2)基于人类日常行为与社会和环境条件之间的相互作用，登革热风险如何在城市内变化；(3)公共服务和环境条件的改善将如何影响城市的登革热发病率？这些努力将有助于建立一个以空间科学为基础的跨学科框架，用于研究城市蚊媒疾病。这项工作还将产生疾病建模工具，可用于规划世界各地发展中城市的公共卫生干预措施。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project investigates the social and environmental conditions in cities that contribute to mosquito-borne diseases such as dengue. This work is motivated by the dramatic rates of urbanization seen across the world, and the complex role that urban environments play in maintaining mosquito populations and driving disease transmission. Despite the public health importance of dengue, there is little known about how factors such as city structure, human population density, and human behaviors come together to affect disease risk. To examine these factors, these scientists will gather information from diverse sources such as public health records, household mosquito collections, satellite imagery, and community-based conversations. On-the-ground work will be conducted in an urban environment that has a high incidence of dengue. This work is part of a collaboration with the local health department, so that findings will support ongoing disease prevention strategies. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this project will provide support to enable a promising student to establish an independent research career.There are no widely-available vaccines or effective treatment options for dengue. Therefore, disease prevention is centered around controlling mosquito populations. The scientists propose that to effectively control mosquito populations and disease transmission, there must be a greater understanding of the social and environmental dynamics in cities that affect mosquito ecology, human exposure to mosquitoes, and virus transmission. This project asks (1) what factors drive differences in rates of dengue across cities; (2) how does dengue risk vary within a city, based on the interactions between every-day human behaviors and social and environmental conditions; and (3) how will improvements to public services and environmental conditions affect rates of dengue in a city? These efforts will contribute to an inter-disciplinary framework for studying urban mosquito-borne diseases, grounded in spatial sciences. The work will also result in disease modeling tools that can be used to plan public health interventions in growing cities around the world.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.