Johns Hopkins University (JHU)
Re-envisioning the "F" in SAFE: Facial cleanliness and hygiene metrics, personal hygiene practices, and trachoma risk: Operational research for enhanced evaluation in Tanzania
RQ1 - Reliability assessment: What is the intra- and inter-rater reliability of current qualitative F and novel quantitative hygiene metrics across study contexts?
RQ2 – Validity assessment: What is the validity of each metric of interest (i.e., quantitative hygiene and qualitative F metrics) with regard to recent personal hygiene practices and trachoma outcomes?
RQ3 – Utility assessment: What is the utility of each metric (i.e., qualitative and quantitative)?
RQ4 – Risk factor assessment: Do proxy facial and hand hygiene outcomes, as measured by the novel quantitative hygiene metric, represent risk factors of incident C. trachomatis infection?
Exploring alternative indicators for trachoma endpoint decision-making (Tanzania)
Analyze the relationships between the prevalence of the clinical sign follicular trachoma (TF) and the prevalence of infection and antibody to determine whether it may be appropriate to consider one or more alternative indicators for deciding whether trachoma programs can stop MDA.
To validate thresholds for stopping MDA and improve confidence that elimination goals have been achieved through post-MDA surveillance.
Re-envisioning the "F" in SAFE: Facial cleanliness and hygiene metrics, personal hygiene practices, and trachoma risk: Operational research for enhanced evaluation in Tanzania
RQ1 - Reliability assessment: What is the intra- and inter-rater reliability of current qualitative F and novel quantitative hygiene metrics across study contexts?
RQ2 – Validity assessment: What is the validity of each metric of interest (i.e., quantitative hygiene and qualitative F metrics) with regard to recent personal hygiene practices and trachoma outcomes?
RQ3 – Utility assessment: What is the utility of each metric (i.e., qualitative and quantitative)?
RQ4 – Risk factor assessment: Do proxy facial and hand hygiene outcomes, as measured by the novel quantitative hygiene metric, represent risk factors of incident C. trachomatis infection?
Field-testing a Lateral Flow Assay for anti-Chlamydial Antibody Responses
To field-test the Pgp3 lateral flow assay to compare data obtained in the field on the rapid test to that from DBS collected from the same individual tested on the Pgp3 multiplex bead array.