PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Hannah Wild
AU  - Luke Glowacki
AU  - Stace Maples
AU  - Iván Mejía-Guevara
AU  - Amy Krystosik
AU  - Matthew H. Bonds
AU  - Abiy Hiruy
AU  - A. Desiree LaBeaud
AU  - Michele Barry
TI  - Making Pastoralists Count: Geospatial Methods for the Health Surveillance of Nomadic Populations
AID  - 10.1101/572685
DP  - 2019 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 572685
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/06/26/572685.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/06/26/572685.full
AB  - Nomadic pastoralists are among the world’s hardest-to-reach and least-served populations. Pastoralist communities are difficult to capture in household surveys due to factors including their high degree of mobility over remote terrain, fluid domestic arrangements, and cultural barriers. Most surveys utilize census-based sampling frames which do not accurately capture the demographic and health parameters of nomadic populations. As a result, pastoralists are “invisible” in population data such as the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS). By combining remote sensing and geospatial analysis, we developed a sampling strategy designed to capture the current distribution of nomadic populations.We then implemented this sampling frame to survey a population of mobile pastoralists in southwest Ethiopia, focusing on maternal and child health (MCH) indicators. Using standardized instruments from DHS questionnaires, we draw comparisons with regional and national data finding disparities with DHS data in core MCH indicators including vaccination coverage, skilled birth attendance, and nutritional status. Our field validation demonstrates that this method is a logistically feasible alternative to conventional sampling frames and may be used at the population level. Geospatial sampling methods provide cost-affordable and logistically feasible strategies for sampling mobile populations, a crucial first step towards reaching these groups with health services.