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Credit: James Gathany
Data that tracks cell phone activity can help us more accurately target antimalaria interventions, according to a paper published in Malaria Journal.
Researchers used anonymized cell phone records to measure population movements within Namibia, Africa, over a year.
By combining this data with information about malaria cases, topography, and climate, the group was able to identify geographical “hotspots” of the disease and design targeted plans for its elimination.
“If we are to eliminate this disease, we need to deploy the right measures in the right place, but figures on human movement patterns in endemic regions are hard to come by and often restricted to local travel surveys and census-based migration data,” said study author Andrew Tatem, PhD, of the University of Southampton in the UK.
“Our study demonstrates that the rapid global proliferation of mobile phones now provides us with an opportunity to study the movement of people, using sample sizes running in to millions. This data, combined with disease-case-based mapping, can help us plan where and how to intervene.”
Dr Tatem and his colleagues looked at anonymized Call Data Records from 2010 to 2011, provided by Mobile Telecommunications Limited. The data represented 9 billion communications from 1.19 million unique subscribers, around 52% of the population of Namibia.
The researchers analyzed aggregated movements of phone users between urban areas and urban and rural areas, in conjunction with data based on rapid diagnostic testing of malaria and information on the climate, environment, and topography of the country.
In this way, the team identified communities that were strongly connected by relatively higher levels of population movement. They quantified the net export and import of travelers and mapped malaria infection risks by region.
The researchers said these malaria risk maps can aid the design of targeted interventions to reduce the number of malaria cases exported to other regions and help manage the risk of infection in places that import the disease.
In fact, the maps have already helped the Namibia National Vector-borne Diseases Control Programme improve their targeting of malaria interventions to communities most at risk.
Specifically, the maps prompted the organization to target insecticide-treated bed net distribution in the Omusati, Kavango, and Zambezi regions in 2013.
“The importation of malaria from outside a country will always be a crucial focus of disease control programs, but movement of the disease within countries is also of huge significance,” Dr Tatem said. “Understanding the human element of this movement should be a critical component when designing elimination strategies—to help target resources most efficiently.”
“The use of mobile phone data is one example of how new technologies are overcoming past problems of quantifying and gaining a better understanding of human movement patterns in relation to disease control.” 
Credit: James Gathany
Data that tracks cell phone activity can help us more accurately target antimalaria interventions, according to a paper published in Malaria Journal.
Researchers used anonymized cell phone records to measure population movements within Namibia, Africa, over a year.
By combining this data with information about malaria cases, topography, and climate, the group was able to identify geographical “hotspots” of the disease and design targeted plans for its elimination.
“If we are to eliminate this disease, we need to deploy the right measures in the right place, but figures on human movement patterns in endemic regions are hard to come by and often restricted to local travel surveys and census-based migration data,” said study author Andrew Tatem, PhD, of the University of Southampton in the UK.
“Our study demonstrates that the rapid global proliferation of mobile phones now provides us with an opportunity to study the movement of people, using sample sizes running in to millions. This data, combined with disease-case-based mapping, can help us plan where and how to intervene.”
Dr Tatem and his colleagues looked at anonymized Call Data Records from 2010 to 2011, provided by Mobile Telecommunications Limited. The data represented 9 billion communications from 1.19 million unique subscribers, around 52% of the population of Namibia.
The researchers analyzed aggregated movements of phone users between urban areas and urban and rural areas, in conjunction with data based on rapid diagnostic testing of malaria and information on the climate, environment, and topography of the country.
In this way, the team identified communities that were strongly connected by relatively higher levels of population movement. They quantified the net export and import of travelers and mapped malaria infection risks by region.
The researchers said these malaria risk maps can aid the design of targeted interventions to reduce the number of malaria cases exported to other regions and help manage the risk of infection in places that import the disease.
In fact, the maps have already helped the Namibia National Vector-borne Diseases Control Programme improve their targeting of malaria interventions to communities most at risk.
Specifically, the maps prompted the organization to target insecticide-treated bed net distribution in the Omusati, Kavango, and Zambezi regions in 2013.
“The importation of malaria from outside a country will always be a crucial focus of disease control programs, but movement of the disease within countries is also of huge significance,” Dr Tatem said. “Understanding the human element of this movement should be a critical component when designing elimination strategies—to help target resources most efficiently.”
“The use of mobile phone data is one example of how new technologies are overcoming past problems of quantifying and gaining a better understanding of human movement patterns in relation to disease control.”
Credit: James Gathany
Data that tracks cell phone activity can help us more accurately target antimalaria interventions, according to a paper published in Malaria Journal.
Researchers used anonymized cell phone records to measure population movements within Namibia, Africa, over a year.
By combining this data with information about malaria cases, topography, and climate, the group was able to identify geographical “hotspots” of the disease and design targeted plans for its elimination.
“If we are to eliminate this disease, we need to deploy the right measures in the right place, but figures on human movement patterns in endemic regions are hard to come by and often restricted to local travel surveys and census-based migration data,” said study author Andrew Tatem, PhD, of the University of Southampton in the UK.
“Our study demonstrates that the rapid global proliferation of mobile phones now provides us with an opportunity to study the movement of people, using sample sizes running in to millions. This data, combined with disease-case-based mapping, can help us plan where and how to intervene.”
Dr Tatem and his colleagues looked at anonymized Call Data Records from 2010 to 2011, provided by Mobile Telecommunications Limited. The data represented 9 billion communications from 1.19 million unique subscribers, around 52% of the population of Namibia.
The researchers analyzed aggregated movements of phone users between urban areas and urban and rural areas, in conjunction with data based on rapid diagnostic testing of malaria and information on the climate, environment, and topography of the country.
In this way, the team identified communities that were strongly connected by relatively higher levels of population movement. They quantified the net export and import of travelers and mapped malaria infection risks by region.
The researchers said these malaria risk maps can aid the design of targeted interventions to reduce the number of malaria cases exported to other regions and help manage the risk of infection in places that import the disease.
In fact, the maps have already helped the Namibia National Vector-borne Diseases Control Programme improve their targeting of malaria interventions to communities most at risk.
Specifically, the maps prompted the organization to target insecticide-treated bed net distribution in the Omusati, Kavango, and Zambezi regions in 2013.
“The importation of malaria from outside a country will always be a crucial focus of disease control programs, but movement of the disease within countries is also of huge significance,” Dr Tatem said. “Understanding the human element of this movement should be a critical component when designing elimination strategies—to help target resources most efficiently.”
“The use of mobile phone data is one example of how new technologies are overcoming past problems of quantifying and gaining a better understanding of human movement patterns in relation to disease control.”