Using Land Use Engagement Surveys to Improve Understanding of Malaria Exposure In Ann Township, Myanmar

Land use changes, such as deforestation bring about ecological disturbances altering the habitats or niches of parasites and their vectors. Land use, human settlement, movement patterns, and behavior bring humans in contact with infected vectors and have been identified as factors controlling the risk of disease transmission. Understanding land use by humans can provide critical information regarding human interaction with the landscape that can be essential for modeling disease risks. Previous research has linked forest cover surrounding villages and forest-related work with an increased malaria risk. Our study aimed to understand human interaction with the landscape in the Ann Township of Rakhine State in Myanmar by surveying participants about their land use activities, their duration and their intensity of use. We use a land use index (LUI) to quantify the nature of human interaction with the landscape. Our analysis determines how land use activities in Ann Township change with demographics and occupation. We found that adults had a wide range of LUI indicating that adult survey respondents were engaged in a diversity of land use activities. LUI values for survey respondents with primarily outdoor and seasonal occupations were higher than those with indoor and non-seasonal occupations. In addition to occupation-related activities, respondents also engaged with their landscape doing chore-related activities such as trips to collect water or visits to the forest. Morning / daytime were the most active time periods of the day and most respondents engaged in water chore- or forest chore-related activities. Children as well as adults identifying as dependents were also engaged with the landscape through chore- and occupation-related activities. Our results show the complex nature of human engagement with the landscape and thus the human risk of exposure to disease. It is important that strategies for malaria prevention and control focus on local / regional land use engagement and on where and how individuals might be exposed to the disease.