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Application of loop analysis for evaluation of malaria control interventions

BACKGROUND: Despite continuous efforts and recent rapid expansion in the financing and implementation of malaria control interventions, malaria still remains one of the most devastating global health issues. Even in countries that have been successful in reducing the incidence of malaria, malaria co...

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Autores principales: Yasuoka, Junko, Jimba, Masamine, Levins, Richard
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4017832/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24713031
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1475-2875-13-140
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author Yasuoka, Junko
Jimba, Masamine
Levins, Richard
author_facet Yasuoka, Junko
Jimba, Masamine
Levins, Richard
author_sort Yasuoka, Junko
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Despite continuous efforts and recent rapid expansion in the financing and implementation of malaria control interventions, malaria still remains one of the most devastating global health issues. Even in countries that have been successful in reducing the incidence of malaria, malaria control is becoming more challenging because of the changing epidemiology of malaria and waning community participation in control interventions. In order to improve the effectiveness of interventions and to promote community understanding of the necessity of continued control efforts, there is an urgent need to develop new methodologies that examine the mechanisms by which community-based malaria interventions could reduce local malaria incidence. METHODS: This study demonstrated how the impact of community-based malaria control interventions on malaria incidence can be examined in complex systems by qualitative analysis combined with an extensive review of literature. First, sign digraphs were developed through loop analysis to analyse seven interventions: source reduction, insecticide/larvicide use, biological control, treatment with anti-malarials, insecticide-treated mosquito net/long-lasting insecticidal net, non-chemical personal protection measures, and educational intervention. Then, for each intervention, the sign digraphs and literature review were combined to analyse a variety of pathways through which the intervention can influence local malaria incidence as well as interactions between variables involved in the system. Through loop analysis it is possible to see whether increases in one variable qualitatively increases or decreases other variables or leaves them unchanged and the net effect of multiple, interacting variables. RESULTS: Qualitative analysis, specifically loop analysis, can be a useful tool to examine the impact of community-based malaria control interventions. Without relying on numerical data, the analysis was able to describe pathways through which each intervention could influence malaria incidence on the basis of the qualitative patterns of the interactions between variables in complex systems. This methodology is generalizable to various disease control interventions at different levels, and can be utilized by a variety of stakeholders such as researchers, community leaders and policy makers to better plan and evaluate their community-based disease control interventions.
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spelling pubmed-40178322014-05-13 Application of loop analysis for evaluation of malaria control interventions Yasuoka, Junko Jimba, Masamine Levins, Richard Malar J Research BACKGROUND: Despite continuous efforts and recent rapid expansion in the financing and implementation of malaria control interventions, malaria still remains one of the most devastating global health issues. Even in countries that have been successful in reducing the incidence of malaria, malaria control is becoming more challenging because of the changing epidemiology of malaria and waning community participation in control interventions. In order to improve the effectiveness of interventions and to promote community understanding of the necessity of continued control efforts, there is an urgent need to develop new methodologies that examine the mechanisms by which community-based malaria interventions could reduce local malaria incidence. METHODS: This study demonstrated how the impact of community-based malaria control interventions on malaria incidence can be examined in complex systems by qualitative analysis combined with an extensive review of literature. First, sign digraphs were developed through loop analysis to analyse seven interventions: source reduction, insecticide/larvicide use, biological control, treatment with anti-malarials, insecticide-treated mosquito net/long-lasting insecticidal net, non-chemical personal protection measures, and educational intervention. Then, for each intervention, the sign digraphs and literature review were combined to analyse a variety of pathways through which the intervention can influence local malaria incidence as well as interactions between variables involved in the system. Through loop analysis it is possible to see whether increases in one variable qualitatively increases or decreases other variables or leaves them unchanged and the net effect of multiple, interacting variables. RESULTS: Qualitative analysis, specifically loop analysis, can be a useful tool to examine the impact of community-based malaria control interventions. Without relying on numerical data, the analysis was able to describe pathways through which each intervention could influence malaria incidence on the basis of the qualitative patterns of the interactions between variables in complex systems. This methodology is generalizable to various disease control interventions at different levels, and can be utilized by a variety of stakeholders such as researchers, community leaders and policy makers to better plan and evaluate their community-based disease control interventions. BioMed Central 2014-04-09 /pmc/articles/PMC4017832/ /pubmed/24713031 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1475-2875-13-140 Text en Copyright © 2014 Yasuoka et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research
Yasuoka, Junko
Jimba, Masamine
Levins, Richard
Application of loop analysis for evaluation of malaria control interventions
title Application of loop analysis for evaluation of malaria control interventions
title_full Application of loop analysis for evaluation of malaria control interventions
title_fullStr Application of loop analysis for evaluation of malaria control interventions
title_full_unstemmed Application of loop analysis for evaluation of malaria control interventions
title_short Application of loop analysis for evaluation of malaria control interventions
title_sort application of loop analysis for evaluation of malaria control interventions
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4017832/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24713031
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1475-2875-13-140
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