Fwd: Please join us for a TGIR faculty candidate seminar on Thursday 2/6 at 4:30

Dear all,

 

Our first faculty candidate for a shared TGIR assistant professor position, shared between CEMS and LCOM, will be here this Thursday 2/6. This recruit should have a special emphasis on ID Epidemiology/Quantitative Methods. Our first candidate, Dr. Racheal Sippy, will be giving her research seminar at 4:30-5:30 in the Innovation Building Rm E100. UVM map link is also below. Talk is entitled, "Mosquitos in the Home: Disease Risks from the Environment". The talk abstract is below. 

 

Hope to see you then. Thanks, the TGIR team.

 

Aedes aegypti is the principal vector for dengue, chikungunya and Zika. Human cases and mosquito abundance are linked to the environmental factors in studies at regional, city, or neighborhood scales, but finer scale research is sparse. The impact of the household environment on mosquito presence is unclear. Using surveys, housing assessments and entomological data captured across the dengue transmission season in two cities (Zaruma and Portovelo) in Ecuador, we compare the effect of housing on Ae. aegypti presence. We used binomial generalized linear mixed models (houses within clusters as random effects), adjusting for potential confounders. Across seasons, 65 houses from Portovelo and 73 houses from Zaruma participated.

In Portovelo, patios affected Ae. aegypti risk. Compared to homes with no patio, those with messy patios had a risk increase (RR: 2.30, 95% CI: 1.38—3.84) as did homes with clean patios (RR: 2.78, 95% CI: 1.44—5.36). In Zaruma, patio presence, patio cleanliness, and frequency of trash pickup affected risk. Compared to homes with no patio, those with messy patios had a risk increase (RR: 2.52, 95% CI: 1.07—5.94) and no effect among homes with a clean patio (RR: 1.39, 95% CI: 0.58—3.34). Compared to homes with trash pickup of 3 times a week or less, homes with daily pickup had increased risk (RR: 3.10, 95% CI: 1.14—8.41).

Each location had different built environment risk, which could be explained by mosquito adaptation to local environments or differential effects of climate on the built environment in each city. Mosquitoes may have unmeasured preference for specific housing characteristics present in each location (e.g. homes with patios in Portovelo have some unmeasured additional breeding habitats), or there are unmeasured confounders. This work demonstrates that built environment impacts on Ae. aegypti presence may vary according to location, meaning public health communication and control efforts should be place-specific. Additional research must assess the mediating effects of climate and the built environment or potential interactions in the creation of suitable Ae. aegypti habitats.