This PhD opportunity is being offered as part of the LSTM and Lancaster University Doctoral Training Partnership. Find out more about the studentships and how to apply.
| Abstract | Zoonotic disease can cause serious disease in humans, livestock and wildlife. The infections they cause often go undiagnosed or misdiagnosed, leading to inappropriate treatment and inadequate control measures. Climate sensitive, vector borne zoonoses repeatedly fall between discipline and funding gaps but their impact on marginalised communities across East Africa has been recognised as a problem for decades. In these areas, where people are heavily dependent on livestock for their livelihoods, zoonoses often bring to bear a significant and negative effect on human health, socio-economic development and nutritional security. Clearer evidence on the impact of zoonoses on human health, at household and local authority level is needed to advocate for more efficient and effective control measures. This includes appropriate surveillance and control strategies in livestock (and wildlife?) to prevent the spillover events that result in human infection. In addition to the lack of data on the direct socio-economic impacts of zoonoses there is stark lack of data on the household and local level nutritional impacts of zoonoses. In livestock, the impact of vector-borne zoonoses on production losses all too often exerts a heavy burden on primary producers who rely on their livestock for survival. An important aspect of production loss in livestock includes milk losses attributable to Rift Valley Fever, Trypanosomiasis and Schistosomiasis. Milk is very often a key dietary component for young children from East African farming communities (FAO, GDP and IFCN, 2020). It is an accessible food type in low-resource, vulnerable populations (Iannotti, 2018). It is of note that there is scant data as to the direct effect of livestock milk production losses due to infectious disease on important childhood nutritional metrics, such us stunting (Mosites et al., 2017). Stunting is a significant global problem, affecting 22.3% of children aged under 5 years in 2022, while 43% of all stunted children live in Africa (Unicef/WHO/World Bank group, 2023). Stunting is well recognised as being a detrimental factor for children in achieving their development and health potential (Black et al., 2013). The changing climate also poses a new question about how the incidence and impact of zoonotic diseases, and particularly those that are vector borne, will change as the environment around us changes. Project objectives:
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| Where does this project lie in the translational pathway? | T1 - Basic Research,T3 - Evidence into Practice ,T4 - Practice to Policy/Population |
| Methodological Aspects | This project will require mathematical modelling of the different processes involved in infectious zoonotic disease spread and impact in human and livestock populations. Skills from health economics and mathematical modelling will then be needed to embed the novel infectious disease model within an economic simulation model to produce estimates of the downstream impact of multiple zoonotic diseases on household economics, nutritional availability and subsequent child development. The project will also include development of geospatial simulation models that incorporate environmental and weather variables with the dynamic disease models embedded within the geospatial models to assess the impact of a varying climate on vector borne zoonotic disease outcomes. The project will require sourcing, storage and processing of large data from multiple and varied sources, and using high performance computing servers to run the analysis - training for which will be provided. |
| Expected Outputs | 1. Publication on the current impacts of Rift Valley Fever virus, Trypanosomiasis and Schistosomiasis on household economics, milk availability for child growth and development and human health in East Africa. 2. Publication on the impacts of a changing climate on the incidence of these three climate sensitive vector borne diseases in East Africa. 3. Presentation and communication of research findings to One Health stakeholders at the international livestock research institute (ILRI) in Ethiopia and Nairobi and GALVmed in the UK on the household economic and nutritional impacts of these zoonoses and how these each will vary with a changing climate. This project will provide data and evidence directly to the decision makers, who will be engaged with the work from the beginning. GALVmed develop drugs specifically for livestock disease control to improve human health. ILRI run multiple livestock health improvement programmes across Africa with a mission to improve childhood health through improved livestock health and disease control. 4. During the final year of the project, based on study findings, applications will be made to the Wellcome Trust and MRC/BBSRC to secure further funding for the candidate to follow up this work with design and implementation of interventions as either a post-doctoral research position or a fellowship. |
| Training Opportunities | The candidate will have access to all courses for the MSc Health data science at Lancaster University as well as access to general courses on academic writing, time management and presentation skills provided by Lancaster University. The candidate will also receive additional bespoke training in health economics. At Lancaster University the candidate will also be encouraged to audit MSc courses ran by the maths and statistics department and the Global Health MSc courses. |
| Skills Required | This project would suit a medical or veterinary graduate with a data science MSc who wishes to work across disciplines at the modelling/policy impact interface or a maths and statistics graduate who wishes to work more in the field of applied epidemiology and development of one health interventions to protect human health. The project has a focus on East Africa, so a candidate with experience working in this area, in epidemiology and/or one health would have a good background knowledge that would be advantageous when starting the project, but the methods developed will have global relevance. |
| Subject Areas | Neglected Tropical Diseases and Maternal, newborn and child health |
| Key Publications associated with this project |
Black, R.E. et al. (2013) ‘Maternal and child undernutrition and overweight in low-income and middle-income countries’, Lancet (London, England), 382(9890), pp. 427–451. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(13)60937-X. AO, GDP and IFCN (2020) Dairy’s impact on reducing global hunger. (Dairy’s impact on reducing global hungry), p. vii + 50 pp. Iannotti, L.L. (2018) ‘The benefits of animal products for child nutrition in developing countries’, Revue scientifique et technique (International Office of Epizootics), 37(1), pp. 37–46. Available at: https://doi.org/10.20506/rst.37.1.2738. Mosites, E. et al. (2017) ‘Child height gain is associated with consumption of animal-source foods in livestock-owning households in Western Kenya’, PUBLIC HEALTH NUTRITION, 20(2), pp. 336–345. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1017/S136898001600210X. Unicef/WHO/World Bank group (2023) Levels and Trends in Child Malnutrition Child Malnutrition: Key Findings of the 2023 Edition. 1st ed. Geneva: World Health Organization. |