Objectives
Infectious disease in China's changing
environment
The fundamental objective of our
work with schistosomiasis japonica is to gain a quantitative
understanding of how environmental and social factors mediate the risk of infection in
human populations in order to find the most sustainable
ways to effectively interrupt transmission. While the major determinants
of transmission intensity have been know qualitatively for many years,
neither their magnitude or the scale of their temporal and spatial
variability have been characterized adequately to inform site-specific
control strategies.
In view of our quantitative focus we have employed mathematical modeling
techniques to integrate qualitative knowledge of the transmission
process. Our data captures relevant aspects of the parasite’s life
cycle in humans and in the snail. We have collected variety of local data
that characterize and quantify
snail habitat and environmental and agricultural factors that influence
the dynamics of transmission.
It has been clear that natural landscape patterns and anthropogenic
modifications of
endemic areas play important roles in determining disease
magnitude and variability. As a result we have used Geographic
information systems and
remote sensing technologies to study the effects landscape factors have
on mediating disease outcomes. These
technologies are central to our more recent work that focuses on
understanding disease transmission in a changing environment.