Case Study: Premise Data + USAID

Zika Grand Challenge
Project SuccessUsing Data and Digital Technologyfor Vector ControlOverview
In 2016, Cali, Colombia had the highest number of Zika cases in the country.
The city’s public health team decided to fight the outbreak by using a
combination of surveillance, control and prevention activities. But the city
lacked a robust system for managing field activities in real-time to make datadriven decisions on mosquito abatement and eradication.
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), through a Grand
Challenge Grant, asked Premise Data to design a series of tasks local residents
could undertake, using their smartphones, as a way to identify Aedes aegypti
breeding sites, destroy them and then change the human-led behaviors thatwere allowing mosquitoes to breed and spread. Premise created real-time
dashboards for the city health authorities who manage vector monitoring andcontrol activities. Ultimately this meant decisions could be made practically in realtime, and certainly much faster than ever before: Historically disease data would
be collected from hospitals, reported to the national surveillance system, andonly then given to health authorities, a process that could take a week or more.
Results from the pilot project, which ran from early 2018 until July 2019,suggested that when people were shown mosquito breeding grounds andinformed about the Zika virus, they were more likely to inspect their own homes
and then take steps to keep them mosquito-free.

7,000
citizens participated

108,000
home inspections

More than 7,000 citizens participated in the project,working in three cities in Colombia—Cucuta, Caliand Santa Marta. By the time the project hadconcluded, some 108,000 home inspections had
been completed (some homes were inspected
multiple times).

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Premise + USAID

A Variety of Tasks
Local citizens were asked to complete different Zika
monitoring tasks. These included walking mapped routes,
inspecting public spaces and private homes, asking
questions, taking photos and destroying breeding sites.
Destroying the breeding ground could consist of efforts
such as emptying barrels of non potable water, cleaning
up known breeding areas using bleach tablets anddiscarding old tires (where water tends to pool).

By the end of the project, the average number of breedingsites in the areas inspected was reduced by 65%,
dropping from 3.5 sites to 1.2 sites. “Softer” data tells us
the community network vastly improved its self-regulation.

The tasks were co-designed with local health authorities
to train an average citizen to identify and destroy
mosquito breeding sites that were found on a regularstreet, public park or in a house.

Contributors ultimately completed
more than 108,130 tasks anddestroyed more than 70,070 positivemosquito breeding sites.
The local officials used the data collected to detect andremmediate coverage gaps and eventually dispatchedworkers to the highest-risk areas in real-time. Using
Premise’s data visualization dashboards, local healthauthorities were empowered to make evidence-based
decisions using data they previously did not have access to.

Example of a completed route allowing the Premise team to identify
the exact route taken by a Contributor, the location where mosquito
breeding sites were identified, and the time and coordinates wheneach observation was made.

Sample images of dashboards seen by local government and healthofficials.

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Premise + USAID

Citizen Contributors Were Paid
Participants were paid either in bitcoin or by bank deposit.
Premise pays people in a variety of ways, per theirpreference, including crypto. For “unbanked” populations,and in regions where there is hyperinflation, or where thelocal currency is worthless, Contributors prefer to be paidin bitcoin. Some people want another currency and there
are a number of reasons some Contributors prefer bitcoin.
Bitcoin improves access and speed of payment for people
in low and moderate income brackets, and also reduces
the fees associated with cross-border money transfer.

An Innovative New Participatory
Approach
As this project proved, getting local communities involvedin collecting data to monitor disease outbreaks can help
to complement the work done by health officials who havetypically carried out such tasks. It also encourages citizens
to recognize they are empowered to help prevent thespread of disease by implementing healthy habits rather
than relying on local governments to solve every problem.

Each red point represents an intersection in the city where at least
75% of inspections resulted in positive findings of Aedes Aegypti.

Using a vast collection of data points, Premise, USAID
and the citizen network were able to show Colombian
authorities through mapping where the most high-impact
areas were. As regions around the globe face new
mosquito-borne outbreaks, there is a growing need to find
new ways to monitor and reduce the spread of infectious
diseases like Zika and dengue, which includes giving
affected communities tech-based solutions. The USAID/Premise project demonstrates one effective option.

of inspections resulted in

75% positive findings
5% negative finding
5% positive finding

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