The seventh cholera pandemic, which began in 1961, has annually afflicted millions and claimed tens of thousands of lives. Recognized by the World Health Organization as the longest-lasting pandemic in history, cholera spreads through contamination of household water sources by the Vibrio cholerae bacterium, often from poor sanitation infrastructure. In nations such as Bangladesh, where is endemic due to and inadequate access to and sanitation facilities, the disease poses a significant public health risk.
Could providing high-risk populations with an for local cholera risks encourage households to adopt safer water, sanitation, and hygiene practices, thereby reducing susceptibility to cholera infection? Supported, in part, by NASA and administrated by Resources for the Future, Kevin Boyle and colleagues from Moravian University, Penn State, and the University of Rhode Island assessed the feasibility of implementing a smartphone app designed to convey cholera risk forecasts to households to mitigate the threat of cholera in Bangladesh. Their research, "Early warning systems, mobile technology, and cholera aversion: Evidence from rural Bangladesh," was in the May edition of the . For the purposes of this research, the team developed CholeraMap, an Android-based smartphone application that conveys cholera risk forecasts to households.
The app enables users to access risk predictions—from low to medium to high—for both their community and individual home locations. The app a.