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ECODESS
ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE AND DIARRHEAL DISEASE: HOW ROADS IMPACT PATHOGEN TRANSMISSION
Project Objectives
The EcoDESS Roads & Diarrheal Disease Study was conducted from 2003-2013.
Environmental change plays a large role in the emergence of infectious disease. The construction of a new road in a previously roadless area of northern coastal Ecuador (Canton Eloy Alfaro) provides a valuable natural experiment to examine how changes in the social and natural environment, mediated by road construction, affect the epidemiology of diarrheal diseases.
Within our study region communities reside along 3 river basins, the Onzole, Cayapas, and Santiago. Some have road access and others only river access. Twenty-one villages were randomly selected to capture the full distribution of village population size and distance from a main road (remoteness)
The overall objective of the study was to surveil our study communities for enteric infection and diarrheal disease to assess whether a community's remoteness was a driver of infection, diarrheal disease, child growth and antibiotic resistance. To this end, we captured the epidemiology of these communities by conducting several data collection activities.
Lab work in Ecuador is conducted at:
Project Activities
Mapping Communities & Households
Using a GPS instrument, we mapped each community, noting every house, important communal and environmental points, road, and river. We also mapped new roads as they are created over time.
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