Preparing a survey to implement in a country in another continent requires us to make some assumptions about our target audience for the survey that need to be validated.

We assume that:

1. Sierra Leoneans will consent or agree to participate in our survey.
2. Sierra Leoneans will be able to sufficiently comprehend our survey to properly answer questions (if we do not use a translator)
3. Our target audience will give us accurate data because there could be stigmas surrounding Ebola
4. We will have enough time to collect significant data in-country
5. Health officials and politicians will want to make time to meet with us
6.  We can form partnerships with an organization that can continue to collect data once we leave
7. We can form the connections that would enable us to get into schools to administer the survey
8.  The rural populations are the ones at highest risk and therefore the population we should be surveying.
9. The population will perceive the work we are trying to do as being positive and beneficial to them
10. They will be willing to participate in the survey without material compensation

We also have hypotheses our of project that need to be tested during fieldwork.

We hypothesize that:

1. That bat to human contact is occurs significantly enough to be able to accurately model it
2. Main risk factors include behaviors that are fairly common in SL culture like burial rituals or eating bushmeat are responsible for spreading ebola
3. School-aged children will know enough about Ebola and have traceable behaviors that we can link to socioeconomic factors.
4. Transmission from bats to humans are not a result of chance accidents and can be traced to identified behavior patterns.
5. Ebola is transferred directly from bats to humans versus from another animal
6. Ebola prevention methods are more prevalent now than before the outbreak and people are more knowledgeable about the topic.
7. Bushmeat markets may be a major transfer point from bats to humans.
8. The risk factors can actually be correlated and integrated into our models successfully enough to predict future outbreaks
9. School aged children may have fewer of the social barriers and social stigmas surrounding Ebola and will be willing to talk to us more openly than adults about the epidemic.
10. Hunters and those exposed to wooded areas are at higher risk for Ebola because of their direct contact with potential transfer species.

 

I think that I bring level-headedness to my team as well as the ability to see many perspectives and listen closely. I tend to be more of a listener than a talker unless I have an insight or disagree with a talking point. I also can be a mediator because I like to understand and empathize with new ways of looking at a situation. I think at the beginning of the semester I was a little more shy with my opinions and insights but after getting to know the people in my group better and having a more complete knowledge of my project I have become more vocal. From the start I have been a weaker public speaker and it is probably the main thing I would like to improve when it comes to what I bring to my team. I think that confidently interacting with an audience can make a big difference in presentation quality and can bring new opportunities for our project.

The Institutional Review Board (IRB) works to ensure ethical and meaningful research on both a national and international level. Because my project involves interacting with respondents in another country, it will likely be expedited through the IRB review process meaning that it is minimal risk but still involves experimental design. My team will have to submit, along with a detailed course of implementation, copies of our survey we plan to use in Sierra Leone. If we decide it is necessary to write the survey in one of the Sierra Leonean languages, Krio or Mende, we will need to submit all translated versions to the IRB. My team’s top priority is to write the survey as soon as possible in order to be able to submit an application for IRB approval. In addition to the survey, we will also need to draft an International Research Appendix which will detail the cultural context of the country we are travelling to as well as describe our planned method for gaining consent from respondents of our survey. Finally, we will need a Translation Documentation Form if our survey is in one of the Sierra Leonean languages. Our main goal at the moment as a team is to complete and fine tune the survey so we can pursue the necessary application process for gaining approval to work internationally.

For my project our main inputs are time, expertise, partners, resources, space, money, and funding. Our participants are our faculty advisors, my teammates, the NIH, Lehigh, and the GSIF. We are trying to serve a larger global need for viral prevention and prediction in order to better understand the spreading of infections and be better prepared for future outbreaks. Professor Mehta is another participant who contributes his knowledge and expertise to our project.Together, we are working to develop a survey to assess potential risk factors and indications of Ebola transmission from bats to humans. We will then use these targeted risk factors in our statistical model combined with infected bat population models developed by our faculty advisors. We are currently collecting background research to apply in our survey design as well as working on fine tuning a statistical model for the data we collect. We hope our efforts improve prediction of future outbreaks and can even serve as a template to model the spread of other viruses as well. Our hope is to make a lasting impact and contribution to the scientific community.