Appreciating the complexity of localized malaria risk in Ghana: Spatial data challenges and solutions

Bempah, Sandra; Curtis, Andrew; Awandare, Gordon A.; Ajayakumar, Jayakrishnan

doi:10.1016/j.healthplace.2020.102382

Cited by 14 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…Our discussions with community members illustrated their knowledge of mosquito dynamics in their own neighborhoods, a type of place-based knowledge that typifies a “bionomic” approach to vector control that relies on ecological relationships to identify the most productive larval habitats (Kelly and Lezaun 2013). As has been suggested elsewhere (Dongus et al 2007, Biehler et al 2019, Bempah et al 2020), inclusion of local knowledge via participatory mapping and visualization activities in addition to standard entomological sampling is a promising opportunity for an alternative approach to vector control that includes place-based ecological knowledge.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 94%

An integrative approach to mosquito dynamics reveals differences in people’s everyday experiences of mosquitoes

Evans

Bhatnagar

Drake

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Urban environments are heterogeneous landscapes of social and environmental features, with important consequences for human-nature entanglements, such as that of mosquito-borne disease. Investigations into this intra-urban heterogeneity in mosquito dynamics find conflicting results, likely due to the complex socio-ecological interactions and the importance of place-based context. Integrative research, which synthesizes multiple disciplines and epistemologies, can help place ecological results into their social context to explore these place-based differences. Here, we develop an integrative approach to understanding spatial patterns of mosquito burdens in urban systems by combining entomological surveys, semi-structured interviews, and sketch maps. Although we found no evidence for a difference in mosquito abundance across an urban gradient, there were differences in individuals' everyday experiences with mosquitoes. These differences were mediated by how individuals moved through public space and their vulnerability to hazards in these spaces. This example of integrative research illustrates what can be gained from the inclusion of multiple epistemologies, particularly for research in socio-ecological systems.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 94%

An integrative approach to mosquito dynamics reveals differences in people’s everyday experiences of mosquitoes

Evans

Bhatnagar

Drake

et al. 2021

Preprint

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“…The last two columns show the frequency of mention for words related to each theme occurring in each of the transcribed sentences. (Bempah et al, 2020). While trash was still visible in the higher income neighborhoods, the overall situation was far better, including cleaner streets and concrete covered drains (Fig.…”

Section: Tablementioning

confidence: 98%

“…The communities within Teshie where this study was carried out. Due to a lack of established community boundaries, separation between neighborhoods was created using the thiessen polygon feature in ArcGIS (Bempah et al, 2020) Figure 2 Video player. Software used to digitize (map out) risk features such as trash, stagnant water, and trash dumpsites seen in the video.…”

Section: Declarations Figuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Health-trash Nexus in Challenging Environments: A Spatial Mixed Methods Analysis of Accra, Ghana

Bempah¹,

Curtis²,

Awandare³

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Background: Increasing urbanization in Ghana has led to a waste management crisis with multiple public health consequences. The contextualized mapping of what is dumped, where and why might provide vital on-the-ground support to address the problem itself, as well as the spillover disease impacts. One of the biggest challenges, however, are the required spatial and temporal granular data. Methods: In this paper, we employ a spatial mixed methods approach to investigate the issue of waste management through the lens of health and disparity in Teshie, a suburb of Accra, Ghana. Environmental health risks digitized and mapped from these data sources included trash, plant overgrowth, drains and stagnant water. Results: There was an overlaying relationship between trash and open drains. Open drains encouraged the indiscriminate disposal of trash and also served as a cheaper alternative to paying for waste pick up. Poverty played an intricate role in influencing a trash disposal complex at the sub-neighborhood scale.Conclusion: The trash situation in Teshie is a complex one with varied levels of risks for infectious diseases.

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“…Adding further complexity is that these environments are dynamic in nature; the dramatic difference encountered between wet and dry seasons being one obvious example [46]. Further dynamism occurs with critical infrastructure, for example water points (W.Point) or toilets [26], require frequent updating, not only in terms of shifting locations [4,9,9,13,13] but also on how their quality and risks vary temporally [10].…”

Section: International Journal Of Health Geographicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This field technology consists of a global positioning system (GPS) enhanced video, which for informal settlements is usually hand carried through the study space [43]. Each resulting video frame has an associated GPS coordinate attached, meaning the media becomes a digitizing source [10], with water points, drains, standing water, mud, and even trash being mapped [4]. Conceptually, this approach can support local public health operations, or just serve as a basic mapping tool for the local populace [17].…”

Section: International Journal Of Health Geographicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring convolutional neural networks and spatial video for on-the-ground mapping in informal settlements

et al. 2021

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Background The health burden in developing world informal settlements often coincides with a lack of spatial data that could be used to guide intervention strategies. Spatial video (SV) has proven to be a useful tool to collect environmental and social data at a granular scale, though the effort required to turn these spatially encoded video frames into maps limits sustainability and scalability. In this paper we explore the use of convolution neural networks (CNN) to solve this problem by automatically identifying disease related environmental risks in a series of SV collected from Haiti. Our objective is to determine the potential of machine learning in health risk mapping for these environments by assessing the challenges faced in adequately training the required classification models. Results We show that SV can be a suitable source for automatically identifying and extracting health risk features using machine learning. While well-defined objects such as drains, buckets, tires and animals can be efficiently classified, more amorphous masses such as trash or standing water are difficult to classify. Our results further show that variations in the number of image frames selected, the image resolution, and combinations of these can be used to improve the overall model performance. Conclusion Machine learning in combination with spatial video can be used to automatically identify environmental risks associated with common health problems in informal settlements, though there are likely to be variations in the type of data needed for training based on location. Success based on the risk type being identified are also likely to vary geographically. However, we are confident in identifying a series of best practices for data collection, model training and performance in these settings. We also discuss the next step of testing these findings in other environments, and how adding in the simultaneously collected geographic data could be used to create an automatic health risk mapping tool.

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Appreciating the complexity of localized malaria risk in Ghana: Spatial data challenges and solutions

Cited by 14 publications

References 41 publications

An integrative approach to mosquito dynamics reveals differences in people’s everyday experiences of mosquitoes

An integrative approach to mosquito dynamics reveals differences in people’s everyday experiences of mosquitoes

The Health-trash Nexus in Challenging Environments: A Spatial Mixed Methods Analysis of Accra, Ghana

Exploring convolutional neural networks and spatial video for on-the-ground mapping in informal settlements

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