PAthogen Transmission and Health Outcome Models of Enteric Disease

Plain-language summary

The objective of the PATHOME study is to (1) develop statistical and computational methods for examining a complex disease system of interactions between and amongst children, animals, the environment, and enteric pathogens and (2) build a virtual laboratory for predicting which social and environmental developmental improvements best prevents multi-pathogen transmission to infants in urbanizing areas of high disease burden countries. Investigators will characterize how social and environmental development of urban neighborhoods in disease endemic settings modifies the "enteric pathome", i.e. the microbial communities of viral, bacterial, and protozoan pathogens transmitted by human and animal feces in the environment to infants. They will measure the impact of societal development on pathogen transmission to infants by applying a One Health ecosystem-based approach to characterizing interactions between enteric pathome agents in the environment and their transmission via interactions between infants, caregivers (CGs), animals, and environmental materials across domestic and public spaces and climate conditions. Data-validated statistical and computational models can quantify pathogen-specific attributable risk of infection through multiple pathways, and the extent that these risks are due to pathogen interactions with each other and the environment. The overall study hypothesis is that joint modeling of enteric pathome agents across urban households and neighborhoods representing transitional improvements in societal development will show that development leads to lower pathogen-specific detection frequencies, and thus evolution of the pathome from complex to simple microbial community structures. By studying spatial scale, developed and underdeveloped neighborhoods, specific transmission pathways, and seasonality in this process, the conditions that lead to the greatest declines in enteric disease incidence can be identified. This virtual laboratory will be built upon extensive data collection in two different Kenyan cities, including household and neighborhood economic indicators, clinical, zoonotic, and environmental microbiology, behavioral observation, geotracking of humans and domestic animals, climate conditions, population density, and infant anthropometry. This initial virtual lab will provide an evidence-based tool for predicting effective urban interventions to control fecally-transmitted disease in cities globally undergoing epidemiological transitions in infectious disease.

Who can participate

What they're measuring

Trial details