What is it about?
Snakebite envenoming (SBE) is a neglected tropical disease that kills and maims hundreds of thousands of people every year and exerts also a heavy impact in domestic animals. Understanding and confronting SBE demands integrative and holistic approaches that go beyond the biomedical realm. Transdisciplinarity provides a conceptual frame that allows to grasp the complexity of this disease. Transdisciplinarity involves (a) the incorporation of many scientific and technological fields working in an integrated fashion; (b) the involvement of non-academic actors, especially from regions of high incidence of SBE, along the whole research process; and (c) the translation of the research findings to effective interventions aimed at reducing the impact of this disease. This transdisciplinary approach will provide novel epistemic and practical tools to combat SBE on a global basis.
Featured Image
Photo by amol sonar on Unsplash
Why is it important?
To effectively reduce the impact of snakebite envenoming (SBE), especially in impoverished rural settings in the Global South, it is necessary to understand the various aspects of this neglected tropical disease in order to generate evidence-based policies for prevention and control. The complexity of SBE demands the integration of a wide variety of fields, including natural and social sciences, technologies, and humanities. It also requires that people directly affected by SBE become involved in the research process, and that the evidence gathered through research is translated into the search for effective solutions. To attain such comprehensive and holistic goals it is necessary to incorporate the paradigm of transdisciplinarity into this field.
Perspectives
Preparing this manuscript with a distinguished group of colleagues gave me the opportunity to reflect on the concept of transdisciplinarity and on how it can be applied to the field of snakebite envenoming. I am convinced that complex issues and problems, such as this neglected tropical disease, need to be studied and tackled through effective integration of a variety of disciplinary fields, with the involvement of people directly affected by the problem, aiming at generating understanding and providing practical solutions that could be readily applied.
José María Gutiérrez
Universidad de Costa Rica
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Understanding and tackling snakebite envenoming with transdisciplinary research, PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases, November 2022, PLOS,
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pntd.0010897.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
