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Objective Monitoring Of Insecticide-Treated Bednet Use To Improve Malaria Prevention: Smartnet Development And Validation, Paul J. Krezanoski, Data Santorino, Jeffrey Campbell, David Bangsberg

OHSU-PSU School of Public Health Faculty Publications and Presentations

Malaria is a serious health concern for three billion people worldwide, killing nearly 600,000 people a year. Insecticide-treated bednets (ITNs) are an effective and valuable tool for preventing malaria and hundreds of millions of ITNs have been distributed throughout sub-Saharan Africa. Nevertheless, our current methods for measuring ITN use are inadequate to inform malaria prevention programs. The most common method, self-reported ITN use, is limited by 1) social desirability, 2) recall and 3) sampling bias. An acceptable objective and longitudinal method of assessing adherence to ITN use would improve our ability to better understand the determinants of ITN use and …