Trial reportPloS one2017
Adaptive geostatistical sampling enables efficient identification of malaria hotspots in repeated cross-sectional surveys in rural Malawi.
Trial report in PloS one, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 43 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
43 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 84 citations in OpenAlex.
- What are the pathways between poverty and malaria in sub-Saharan Africa? A systematic review of mediation studies.Infectious diseases of poverty · 2023Pooled it
- Spatial and spatio-temporal methods for mapping malaria risk: a systematic review.BMJ global health · 2020Pooled it
- Cost of community-led larval source management and house improvement for malaria control: a cost analysis within a cluster-randomized trial in a rural district in Malawi.Malaria journal · 2021Trial
- Reactive, self-administered malaria treatment against asymptomatic malaria infection: results of a cluster randomized controlled trial in The Gambia.Malaria journal · 2021Trial
- Assessment of the effect of larval source management and house improvement on malaria transmission when added to standard malaria control strategies in southern Malawi: study protocol for a cluster-randomised controlled trial.BMC infectious diseases · 2017Trial
- Geostatistical analysis of baseline prevalence and treatment history drastically reduces the cost of soil-transmitted helminth impact assessment surveys.BMC global and public health · 2026Article
- Interpretable ROI Identification in Brain Image Analysis: Overcoming CNN Black Box Challenges With Kriging-Enhanced Adaptive Sampling.Statistics in medicine · 2026Article
- Assessing Geographic Inequalities in Childhood Immunisation Coverage: A Critical Scoping Review of Spatial Analysis Methods.Vaccines · 2026Article
- Evaluation of the Entomological Adaptive Surveillance Framework for malaria vector monitoring: a comparative field trial with routine surveillance in Ghana and Mozambique.BMJ public health · 2026Article
- Balancing access, precision, and equity in adaptive test site allocation with an application to COVID-19 in Atlanta, Georgia.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Coverage and contextual factors associated with insecticide-treated net use among women of reproductive age in Nigeria: evidence from the 2021 malaria indicator survey data.PLOS global public health · 2025Article
- Geospatial joint modeling of vector and parasite serology to microstratify malaria transmission.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Assessing the implementation fidelity, feasibility, and sustainability of community-based house improvement for malaria control in southern Malawi: a mixed-methods study.BMC public health · 2024Article
- Prevalence and incidence of transfusion-transmissible infections among blood donors in Malawi: A population-level study.Transfusion medicine (Oxford, England) · 2023Article
- Sampling for malaria molecular surveillance.Trends in parasitology · 2023Review
- Community Participation in Habitat Management and Larviciding for the Control of Malaria Vectors in Southern Malawi.The American journal of tropical medicine and hygiene · 2023Article
- Geographically regulated designs of incidence surveys can match the precision of classical survey designs whilst requiring smaller sample sizes: the case of snakebite envenoming in Sri Lanka.BMJ global health · 2022Article
- Hotspots and super-spreaders: Modelling fine-scale malaria parasite transmission using mosquito flight behaviour.PLoS pathogens · 2022Article
- Spatial epidemiology and adaptive targeted sampling to manage the Chagas disease vector Triatoma dimidiata.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2022Article
- Community-based house improvement for malaria control in southern Malawi: Stakeholder perceptions, experiences, and acceptability.PLOS global public health · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
8 authors at 5 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
introductionIn the context of malaria elimination, interventions will need to target high burden areas to further reduce transmission. Current tools to monitor and report disease burden lack the capacity to continuously detect fine-scale spatial and temporal variations of disease distribution exhibited by malaria. These tools use random sampling techniques that are inefficient for capturing underlying heterogeneity while health facility data in resource-limited settings are inaccurate. Continuous community surveys of malaria burden provide real-time results of local spatio-temporal variation. Adaptive geostatistical design (AGD) improves prediction of outcome of interest compared to current random sampling techniques. We present findings of continuous malaria prevalence surveys using an adaptive sampling design.
methodsWe conducted repeated cross sectional surveys guided by an adaptive sampling design to monitor the prevalence of malaria parasitaemia and anaemia in children below five years old in the communities living around Majete Wildlife Reserve in Chikwawa district, Southern Malawi. AGD sampling uses previously collected data to sample new locations of high prediction variance or, where prediction exceeds a set threshold. We fitted a geostatistical model to predict malaria prevalence in the area.
findingsWe conducted five rounds of sampling, and tested 876 children aged 6-59 months from 1377 households over a 12-month period. Malaria prevalence prediction maps showed spatial heterogeneity and presence of hotspots-where predicted malaria prevalence was above 30%; predictors of malaria included age, socio-economic status and ownership of insecticide-treated mosquito nets.
conclusionsContinuous malaria prevalence surveys using adaptive sampling increased malaria prevalence prediction accuracy. Results from the surveys were readily available after data collection. The tool can assist local managers to target malaria control interventions in areas with the greatest health impact and is ready for assessment in other diseases.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.