Validation of three geolocation strategies for health-facility attendees for research and public health surveillance in a rural setting in western Kenya

STRESMAN, G. H.; STEVENSON, J. C.; OWAGA, C.; MARUBE, E.; ANYANGO, C.; DRAKELEY, C.; BOUSEMA, T.; COX, J.

Spatial monitoring of health-facility data has strengthened public health programmes in developed countries and facilitates conducting research with passively collected data [6, 37] . However, the ability to efficiently geolocate individuals residing in areas where no formal address network exists or where the settlement pattern is not conducive to matching individuals to specific localities is currently lacking, particularly in areas around the world where infectious disease transmission persists [5, 38] . The geolocation strategies tested as part of this research exemplify alternative options for obtaining spatial information from health-facility patients in a setting that is typical for much of rural sub-Saharan Africa and other parts of the world. Easily collected spatial information can supplement both passive and active disease surveillance to detect foci of transmission, enables the detection of outbreaks in a timely manner, and facilitates tracking of how disease spreads through the population over time [37, 39, 40] . If validated in other parts of the world, these results indicate that recording the nearest primary school or implementation of a participatory mapping exercise at rural health facilities offer potential strategies to facilitate spatial analysis of disease dynamics. Further research is needed to demonstrate their utility in a range of settings and their operational viability before formal testing in a broader operational context.