What is it about?
We connect a disease ecology model of schistosomiasis infection dynamics to a microeconomic model of agricultural households optimally choosing behaviors subject to environmental and market constraints. This dynamic structural model of coupled human-ecological system explains the origin of a poverty-disease trap. It also provides a theory- and numerical simulation-based explanation for why a novel ecological intervention - described in Rohr et al. (Nature 2023) - to clear aquatic vegetation from water points succeeds in dramatically reducing schistosomiasis infection rates while boosting agricultural productivity.
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Why is it important?
This model advances understanding of poverty-disease linkages by downscaling to household - organism level coupled dynamics. The core modeling approach can be extended to a range of other vector-borne diseases that are affected by human disturbance of the host ecosystem.
Perspectives
Infectious diseases remain a severe burden on the rural poor, especially for children and women. Diseases like schistosomiasis that afflict many but (thankfully) kill relatively few draw relatively little attention, research, or investment. We need more work like this that seeks to identify low-cost, scalable methods that can reduce reliance on deworming drugs and address the structural, environmental causes of diseases that afflict the world's poor.
Chris Barrett
Cornell University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Modeling how and why aquatic vegetation removal can free rural households from poverty-disease traps, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, December 2024, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2411838121.
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