Mosquito-borne diseases are a growing problem worldwide, placing huge burdens on society and exacerbating poverty and inequality. Dengue, chikungunya, and Zika are on the rise, with each year bringing hundreds of millions of new dengue cases and millions of new chikungunya and Zika cases. Malaria continues to infect hundreds of millions of people annually, killing hundreds of thousands, with recent hopes for a decline now replaced by fears over the diminishing returns of prevention strategies. The massive burden these diseases place on society is felt particularly by those with the least resources, exacerbating social inequality worldwide. To tackle this problem, we need better information about the interactions between mosquitoes and the humans they bite, and about the resulting networks through which diseases flow.
The Human-Mosquito Interaction Project (H-MIP) aims to provide this information, offering a socio-ecological perspective that builds on several key insights: (1) Mosquitoes are an excellent source of information about the people they bite; (2) people are an excellent source of information about the mosquitoes that bite them; (3) mobility phone positioning can provide novel insights about human-mosquito biting networks; and (4) adding a social science perspective to disease ecology is crucial for tackling the problem of mosquito-borne disease. This project aims to reconstruct human-mosquito biting networks alongside human mobility patterns, and investigate how the networks are shaped by human and mosquito population densities, human outdoor activities and water-related behavior, the design and use of outdoor public spaces, socio-economic conditions, land cover, climate, and other factors. The results will be used to make recommendations for improved disease models and targeted policy interventions in Europe and worldwide.
