Data bites man: The production of malaria by technology
Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review
Malaria surveillance is a practice concerned with collection and analysis of data. This paper presents an ethnographical account of an international team of researchers producing data about malaria in the Zanzibar archipelago. We show that malaria is increasingly an electronic entity, inextricably interwoven with the practices of data workers using ICT tools. The use of mobile ICT tools enables new data production practices that include situated coordination mechanisms such that 1) more people can be surveyed, including individuals not suffering from malaria but possibly carrying the parasite, 2) greater geographical areas can be covered, and 3) more data can be validated and included in malaria statistics. As electronic data, malaria builds and mobilizes diverse human, organizational, and infrastructural worlds around it, who must now be dedicated to its production, management, and care. We discuss implications for design of digital data collection tools that support the work of teams surveying malaria, as well as implications for disease surveillance methods and practices.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 153 |
Journal | Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction |
Volume | 2 |
Issue number | CSCW |
ISSN | 2573-0142 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Nov 2018 |
Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:
This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF), funded by the Korea government (MSIP) (No. 2018R1D1A1B07048271). This research was also supported by Kyungpook National University Development Project Research Fund, 2019.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 Copyright held by the owner/author(s).
- And Phrases: data, Coordination work, Malaria, Practices, Surveillance
Research areas
ID: 318207760