Every year Improbable Research presents the Ig Nobel awards for bizarre research topics and this week a paper in MalariaWorld is a contender. ‘Do monetary incentives encourage local communities to collect and upload mosquito sound data using smartphones? A case study in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’ by Storer et al of University of Oxford is follow up on earlier research in Tanzania. All 14 authors are funded by the usual suspect for experimental technologies imposed on Africa from abroad, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
The research is based on a smartphone app called MozzWear used with the HumBug tool in a bed net that records mosquito flight tone data overnight and provides a secure connection to a server at the University of Oxford where the data are uploaded via the mobile or Wi-Fi data network. The data then run through an algorithm pipeline that first detects the mosquito flight tone from background noise and then identifies the mosquito species using their acoustic signature. The previous research in Tanzania did not find that SMS reminders or financial incentives improved compliance.
This study took place in Kinshasa and Bandundu in DRC with control and incentive groups. Control group participants were provided with the HumBug tool (a smartphone running the MozzWear app and the HumBug bed net), and one dollar to pay for an internet connection. The incentive group was provided with the HumBug tool and one dollar for an internet connection, and an additional ten dollars each month paid via airtime to their mobile phones. Participants were instructed to place the smartphone with the MozzWear app in the HumBug net and start the record function at 18:00 hrs and turn it off at 06:00 hrs on their allocated weekly recording day during the trial period (16 weeks total). Once participants were taught how to use the Humbug tool there was no contact between the research team and the participants.
The study found that participation dropped off in both Kinshasa groups and in the incentivised Bandundu group over the 16 weeks. Interestingly, the control Bandundu group continued participating at about 80%. One Kinshasa control group member summed up the reason to participate, “I want to be left with the phones because we will be laughed at (…) if you take them away from us, they will say that we participated in vain.”
I have no idea how effective HumBug with Mozzware is at identifying mosquitos. I wonder how recording mosquitos in this way can possibly help the people (other than those given a free phone). It seems to be just another exploitative example of Bill Gates funding experimental technology in Africa.