Dr Marlee Tichenor attended the "Assembling Epidemics: Disease, Ecology and the (Un)Natural" conference at the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities at the University of Cambridge on September 8-9 and presented a paper entitled "Thresholds: Malaria, Risk, and Disentangling Epidemics," abstract below:-
Included within Goal 3 - the health goal - of the Sustainable Development Goals is the aim that by 2030 the global community will "end the epidemics of AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and neglected tropical diseases and combat hepatitis, water-borne diseases and other communicable diseases." Tracking this SDG is broken down into the indicators of new HIV infections per 1,000 uninfected population, along with TB and Hepatitis B incidence per 100,000 population and malaria incidence per 1,000 population. These incidence rates are then compared against regional- or country-level epidemiological data to determine whether they are "normal" incidences or epidemics. Drawing on my doctoral ethnographic research on malaria control efforts in Senegal, this talk will discuss moving thresholds with regards to malaria parasite diagnosis and epidemic surveillance, and the intensification of quantified risk with the centrality of data production for securing quality health care in the emerging SDG era. Within this context and in this talk, I will ask when do endemic diseases like malaria become epidemics, for whom, and for what purpose? What causality is given for these endemics-turned-epidemics, and what does "ending epidemics" of malaria really mean?
The event website is http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/27212
Marlee will also be attending the Global Burden of Disease 20th Anniversary Event at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation in Seattle, Washington. More about the event can be found here: http://www.healthdata.org/events/gbd-20th-anniversary-event
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