Mobile Malaria Survey
Building Digital Tools for Public Health Data Collection in Rural Zambia
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As a Peace Corps volunteer serving on Zambia's National Malaria Committee, I built a multi-language mobile survey to accelerate efforts by Zambia and the Peace Corps to collect critical malaria data for intervention planning.
Malaria's Devastating Impact in Zambia
More than 16 million people are at risk of malaria in Zambia. In 2015 alone there were over 5 million malaria cases with one in five children under age five infected with malaria parasites.
The disease remains a significant threat to all Zambians, but most of all to populations working in agriculture in rural areas with little access to treatments and mitigation resources.
Personal Witness to the Crisis
As a Peace Corps volunteer in Zambia, I saw firsthand how malaria impacted smallholder farmers. Each year I would attend the funerals of young children in my community who had contracted malaria and not made it through.
Remote agricultural communities face the highest malaria burden due to limited access to healthcare facilities, preventive resources like bednets, and accurate diagnostic testing.
These experiences led me to participate in Peace Corps Zambia's National Malaria Committee, which coordinated volunteer efforts to most effectively encourage malaria interventions throughout the country.
The Data Gap
My time on the committee demonstrated a critical need: a tool to quickly and effectively conduct community-based surveys on bednet use and other intervention behaviors.
Traditional paper-based surveys had significant limitations:
- Slow data turnaround - weeks or months between collection and analysis
- Data entry errors during transcription
- No geographic data linking cases to locations
- Limited reach due to transportation constraints
- Language barriers with fixed survey forms