Science· 2012Q1
Quantifying the Impact of Human Mobility on Malaria
- 1,043citations
- Q1SCImago
- 2012year
Short summary
Analyzing mobile phone data from 15 million users in Kenya, researchers mapped malaria parasite movements across the country, revealing localized transmission around Nairobi.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Key points
- Mobile phone data from 15 million individuals tracked travel patterns in Kenya for one year.
- Analysis linked human movement to malaria parasite transmission across hundreds of local settlements.
- Localized malaria transmission was identified around the periphery of Nairobi.
- Findings challenge the established view that malaria transmission is absent in Nairobi.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Abstract
Mobile Phone “Hot Spots” An obstacle to developing effective national malaria control programs is a lack of understanding of human movements, which are an important component of disease transmission. As mobile phones have become increasingly ubiquitous, it is now possible to collect individual-level, longitudinal data on human movements on a massive scale. Wesolowski et al. (p. 267 ) analyzed mobile phone call data records representing the travel patterns of 15 million mobile phone owners in Kenya over the course of a year. This was combined with a detailed malaria risk map, to estimate malaria parasite movements across the country that could be caused by human movement. This information enabled detailed analysis of parasite sources and sinks between hundreds of local settlements. Estimates were compared with hospital data from Nairobi to show that local pockets of transmission likely occur around the periphery of Nairobi, accounting for locally acquired cases, contrary to the accepted idea that there is no transmission in the capital.
The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Science, 2012 · DOI ↗
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Field: Transportation
TransportationSocial Sciences