Young Protectors: Mapping, Communicating, and Intervening to Reduce Disease Risk in Low-Income Communities

Hussein Khalil of the Federal University of Bahia in Brazil will provide young people in urban slums with knowledge and tools to identify elements that promote the spread of diseases by rats and mosquitos such as dengue and Zika virus infection, and engage their communities to help combat those diseases. They will recruit 40 young residents from two urban slums to test their approach. The youth will be taught to map rat- and mosquito-infested areas and identify possible causes, such as poor waste disposal, by photographing their environments, and to use tools to track rat movements and insect breeding. They will also use gamification methods to stimulate learning and promote collaborations between the youth and adult residents to identify the most effective interventions. Once simple solutions have been identified, the youth will help to implement them in their community and produce and share progress reports using online and offline tools.