RAPID: Understanding Emergent Responses and Decision-making under the Threat of Zika

Indiana University, Bloomington IN

Investigators

Abstract

This award supports Rapid Response Research. The researcher, anthropologist Dr. Lucia Guerra-Reyes of Indiana University, will collect data on existing community perspectives on reproductive decision-making in the context of imminent threat from a disease with severe reproductive consequences. This is an unusual opportunity. Social scientists often study how reproductive decisions are made at the individual and family levels when people learn of the potential of a genetic disease. But what happens when it is an infectious disease and the whole community and its future progeny are affected? Such a significant threat will be particularly illuminating for understanding disease-related decision making. Knowing how people respond to disease threat is critical for developing effective public health policy and effective messaging. But it is also important for tracking how people's behaviors affect the pathways through which the disease itself evolves and is transmitted. In addition, if the disease emerges as expected, collecting data now will provide a baseline that will permit a more complete characterization of emergent responses to disease threat. The research will be carried out in Belem, Peru, an Amazonian region where the Zika virus is expected but has not yet arrived. The region has long been home to mosquito-borne diseases, including the dengue virus, which is carried by the same mosquito vector (Aedes aegypti) that carries Zika virus. Aedes egypti is common throughout the world, including the United States. The large mosquito population, the history of endemic dengue virus, and borders with already affected countries mean Belem community members are aware of the danger of disease, but have not yet had time to develop local responses. The researcher and her Peruvian collaborators will interview key informants (health officials, clinic workers, local leaders); carry out two focus groups (men and women); and conduct in-depth, semi-structured informant interviews with local men and women reached through clinics and by referral. The study of existing community perspectives on reproductive decision-making will allow future follow-up research in the event of Zika spread. Research findings will be of use to policy makers wherever Zika occurs and will also contribute to developing new theory about the interface between culture and biology. Funding this research also supports an international research collaboration of the sort that is critical in a world where disease outbreaks do not recognize national borders.