@article{26563,
  author = {Solomon A and Pavluck A and Courtright P and Aboe A and Adamu L and Alemayehu W and Alemu M and Alexander N and Kello AB and Bero B and Brooker S and Chu BK and Dejene M and Emerson P and Flueckiger R and Gadisa S and Gass KM and Gebre T and Habtamu Z and Harvey E and Haslam D and King J and Mesurier RL and Lewallen S and Lietman TM and Macarthur C and Mariotti SP and Massey A and Mathieu E and Mekasha A and Millar T and Mpyet C and Munoz B and Ngondi J and Ogden S and Pearce J and Sarah V and Sisay A and Smith JL and Taylor H and Thomson J and West S and Willis R and Bush S and Haddad D and Foster A},
  title = {The global trachoma mapping project: Methodology of a 34-country population-based study.},
  abstract = {<p><strong>PURPOSE: </strong>To complete the baseline trachoma map worldwide by conducting population-based surveys in an estimated 1238 suspected endemic districts of 34 countries.</p>

<p><strong>METHODS: </strong>A series of national and sub-national projects owned, managed and staffed by ministries of health, conduct house-to-house cluster random sample surveys in evaluation units, which generally correspond to "health district" size: populations of 100,000-250,000 people. In each evaluation unit, we invite all residents aged 1 year and older from h households in each of c clusters to be examined for clinical signs of trachoma, where h is the number of households that can be seen by 1 team in 1 day, and the product h × c is calculated to facilitate recruitment of 1019 children aged 1-9 years. In addition to individual-level demographic and clinical data, household-level water, sanitation and hygiene data are entered into the purpose-built LINKS application on Android smartphones, transmitted to the Cloud, and cleaned, analyzed and ministry-of-health-approved via a secure web-based portal. The main outcome measures are the evaluation unit-level prevalence of follicular trachoma in children aged 1-9 years, prevalence of trachomatous trichiasis in adults aged 15 + years, percentage of households using safe methods for disposal of human feces, and percentage of households with proximate access to water for personal hygiene purposes.</p>

<p><strong>RESULTS: </strong>In the first year of fieldwork, 347 field teams commenced work in 21 projects in 7 countries.</p>

<p><strong>CONCLUSION: </strong>With an approach that is innovative in design and scale, we aim to complete baseline mapping of trachoma throughout the world in 2015.</p>
},
  year = {2015},
  journal = {Ophthalmic epidemiology},
  volume = {22},
  pages = {214-25},
  issn = {1744-5086},
  url = {http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3109/09286586.2015.1037401},
  doi = {10.3109/09286586.2015.1037401},
  language = {eng},
}