TY - JOUR
T1 - Mobile phones and malaria
T2 - Modeling human and parasite travel
AU - Buckee, Caroline O.
AU - Wesolowski, Amy
AU - Eagle, Nathan N.
AU - Hansen, Elsa
AU - Snow, Robert W.
N1 - Funding Information:
A.P.W. was supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship program (#0750271). R.W.S. is supported by the Wellcome Trust as Principal Research Fellow (# 079080). E.H and C.O.B were supported by Award Number U54GM088558 from the National Institute Of General Medical Sciences . The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institute Of General Medical Sciences or the National Institutes of Health.
PY - 2013/1
Y1 - 2013/1
N2 - Human mobility plays an important role in the dissemination of malaria parasites between regions of variable transmission intensity. Asymptomatic individuals can unknowingly carry parasites to regions where mosquito vectors are available, for example, undermining control programs and contributing to transmission when they travel. Understanding how parasites are imported between regions in this way is therefore an important goal for elimination planning and the control of transmission, and would enable control programs to target the principal sources of malaria. Measuring human mobility has traditionally been difficult to do on a population scale, but the widespread adoption of mobile phones in low-income settings presents a unique opportunity to directly measure human movements that are relevant to the spread of malaria. Here, we discuss the opportunities for measuring human mobility using data from mobile phones, as well as some of the issues associated with combining mobility estimates with malaria infection risk maps to meaningfully estimate routes of parasite importation.
AB - Human mobility plays an important role in the dissemination of malaria parasites between regions of variable transmission intensity. Asymptomatic individuals can unknowingly carry parasites to regions where mosquito vectors are available, for example, undermining control programs and contributing to transmission when they travel. Understanding how parasites are imported between regions in this way is therefore an important goal for elimination planning and the control of transmission, and would enable control programs to target the principal sources of malaria. Measuring human mobility has traditionally been difficult to do on a population scale, but the widespread adoption of mobile phones in low-income settings presents a unique opportunity to directly measure human movements that are relevant to the spread of malaria. Here, we discuss the opportunities for measuring human mobility using data from mobile phones, as well as some of the issues associated with combining mobility estimates with malaria infection risk maps to meaningfully estimate routes of parasite importation.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84875696598&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84875696598&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.tmaid.2012.12.003
DO - 10.1016/j.tmaid.2012.12.003
M3 - Review article
C2 - 23478045
AN - SCOPUS:84875696598
SN - 1477-8939
VL - 11
SP - 15
EP - 22
JO - Travel Medicine and Infectious Disease
JF - Travel Medicine and Infectious Disease
IS - 1
ER -
