Biology of Ecohealth in Tanzania

Catalog description

EcoHealth is an emerging field that examines the complex relationships among humans, animals, plants, and the environment, and how these relationships affect overall health of ecosystems. The ecohealth approach has been applied in a variety of landscapes where humans, domestic animals, and wildlife coexist in close proximity with few boundaries. This course introduces students to dry savannah ecosystems in northern Tanzania and examines how ecohealth is used as a theoretical approach to understand complex systems where zoonotic and infectious diseases have emerged into human populations and been applied practically to design interventions and improve health outcomes. A major focus of the course is to understand how cultural differences among the different ethnic groups in Tanzania impact ecohealth and solutions. The course is approximately three-weeks long and taught entirely in Tanzania during the summer session at Penn State. Students examine topics related to disease dynamics, human and veterinary health, socio-ecological systems, wildlife behavior, and conservation of natural resources. They will also learn the basics of East Africa's socio-political and historical context. Content will be delivered via lectures, readings, and student-led discussions among others. Students are given class pack containing ~20 articles related to zoonotic and vector borne diseases and dry savannah ecology. Examples of zoonotic and vector borne diseases that are currently or previously important in Tanzania include bovine tuberculosis, rabies, brucellosis, anthrax, Rift Valley Fever, Z fever, East African Sleep Sickness, malaria, and rinderpest (an infectious disease of bovids). Daily discussions about these readings are lead by students and they are encouraged to integrate what they have observed with the readings. This exceptional opportunity allows students to design and implement a basic animal behavior field experiment as well as to participate in qualitative research via guided focus groups and interviews with both pastoral and hunter-gatherer communities in the Serengeti-Mara ecosystem. The course will include guest lectures by local experts in biology, conservation, and health as well as visits to a regional hospital and to the Nelson Mandela African Institute of Science and Technology in Arusha, where Penn State researchers are engaged in collaboration to study zoonotic diseases.