I spent the summer finalizing a twelve-month longitudinal field epidemiological study within northwestern Ecuador (province Esmeraldas). Interestingly, this region has been isolated from most of the continent until recent highway development within the last two decades. With increased connectivity, there is a higher rate of diarrheal diseases among communities closer to the major road systems. Increased connectivity has also promoted agricultural development projects that provide conventionally raised meat poultry (e.g., broiler chickens) as an effort to stimulate economic activity. These production-bred birds can function as reservoirs for infectious disease along with antimicrobial resistance. Unfortunately, it is often very difficult to raise meat chickens in a tropical environment with limited farming infrastructure and resources. From our field surveys, we found that families typically lose more than 50% of their chickens to disease before even reaching maturity for consumption. This is an enormous loss in resources for families that already struggle to finance these backyard operations. Development agencies generally only provide the initial flock of chickens, thereby requiring families to secure their own funds for nearly 98% of the total expenses (e.g., feed, vaccines, heat lamps, water dishes, feeders, etc.). My summer project focused on disseminating knowledge gained from my dissertation work with community members as an effort to better inform decision-making in the context of poultry farming. Alongside local collaborators, I designed a comic book guide that outlined the major points from my research. We provided community workshop meetings where families could participate in open discussions about chicken farming while utilizing the comic book to facilitate active dialogue. We also engaged with the children by educating about disease transmission from animal to human by playing a game that required kids to trade different colored balloons (i.e., bacteria) after they encountered another person with a balloon. We concluded each community workshop with a game of Bingo that implemented themes from qualitative research on poultry husbandry practices. The community leaders were grateful for the data shared and eagerly welcomed me to return with future projects!
Hayden Hedman
