Achievement

In an innovative interdisciplinary doctoral dissertation, IGERT trainee Veronica Escamilla combined theory and methods from medical geography, disease ecology, and neighborhoods & health, to explore the influence of poor sanitation on diarrheal disease transmission. Escamilla integrated groundwater microbial data, health and demographic surveillance data, and detailed spatial data of the water and sanitation infrastructure in rural Bangladesh in order to examine the intersection between the environment and behaviors influencing childhood diarrheal disease. Escamilla found that poor sanitation diminishes the effects of improved drinking water sources. Thus, improvements to the built sanitation infrastructure are needed to reduce diarrheal disease incidence. Her dissertation shed light on the importance of integrating population & environment data to identify particular circumstances in which groundwater is compromised, and where children are at risk of contracting diarrheal disease.