Genetic and Behavioral Investigations into Odor Discrimination and Memory

Background: Sustainable and equitable health programmes require a grounded understanding of the context in which they are being implemented. This socio-cultural understanding is pivotal for effective delivery of elimination programmes. Standardised valid methods are needed for gathering authentic socio-cultural insights. The currently recommended protocol for collecting Lymphatic Filariasis (LF) related socio-cultural data, while moving in the right direction, is inadequate. To collect data which provides an understanding of local health beliefs and practices, and communities' understanding of LF, techniques must be developed that are both valid and time efficient. An approach developed in the Pacific provides a basic snapshot of socio-cultural insights which are crucial to the development of relevant and sustainable health education and elimination programmes. Summary: The increasing interest in socio-cultural LF research presents a unique opportunity for coupling socio-cultural and bio-medical understandings of LF. To address the backlog in the sociocultural sphere will require investment of time and effort to integrate valid qualitative approaches into current data collection methodologies. Background Lymphatic filariasis (LF) exacts an enormous infectious toll, affecting approximately 80 tropical and sub-tropical countries. Prevalence mapping is ongoing but a billion people are estimated to be at risk of infection, with 120 million already infected and 40 million seriously incapacitated or disfigured by the disease [1]. While the disease does not result directly in death, it is, after mental illness, the second most common cause of long-term disability globally [2]. One third of people infected with LF live in India, a third live in Africa and the remainder live in Papua New Guinea, Southeast Asia, the Pacific Islands and the Americas. Limited sociological data has been gathered to illuminate the sociocultural factors that influence lymphatic filariasis (LF) occurrence and the success of programmes implemented to eliminate the disease. While there is a growing Published: 17 February 2007 Filaria Journal 2007, 6:3 doi:10.1186/1475-2883-6-3 Received: 8 November 2004 Accepted: 17 February 2007 This article is available from: http://www.filariajournal.com/content/6/1/3 © 2007 Wynd et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.