Project Partner: Ecologia, Desarrollo, Salud, y Sociedad and University of Michigan, Summer 2026
Project Summary: Dengue fever is a disease transmitted by mosquitoes that impacts millions of people every year. Researchers and policymakers generally consider dengue to be an urban disease because of high population density in most cities; however, there is evidence that dengue cases are increasing outside of urban areas. Dengue transmission is complex, depending on a range of environmental factors (i.e., precipitation), infrastructure (i.e., presence of reliable piped water), social factors (i.e., human movement), and biological factors (i.e., mosquito type). As a result, researchers and policymakers need a better framework to predict transmission across all environments.
Charlotte partnered with Ecología, Desarrollo, Salud, y Sociedad (EcoDESS, or Ecology, Development, Health, and Society), a research group that works to understand infectious disease transmission and support community health in Esmeraldas Province, Ecuador. She helped develop a framework to predict dengue transmission in northwest Ecuador by combining environmental, social, and biological factors that determine mosquito abundance and human vulnerability.
Charlotte created a one-page document that describes the framework for public health professionals in Ecuador and Latin America. She also contributed to a manuscript about the framework written for researchers. The new framework can help professionals prevent and monitor dengue outbreaks by better predicting where transmission will occur.
Deliverables:
- One-page document describing the new framework for policymakers in Ecuador and Latin America.
- Forthcoming peer-reviewed manuscript describing framework.
Watch Charlotte’s URBAN internship lightning talk here.