World AIDS Day race on Lake Victoria
Research on Environmental and Community Health
The Mfangano Research on Environmental and Community Health project, or RECH, aims to better understand the links between the changes within the Lake Victoria fisheries and the impact on household fishery access, livelihoods, and child health.
Background:
Our work in Kenya is based on Mfangano Island, a 65 sq km island in the eastern portion of Lake Victoria, where most residents rely on either the Nile perch fishery or small-scale agriculture as livelihoods strategies. The RECH study is led by researchers who first visited Mfangano in 2010 and, in discussions with Mfangano residents were struck by the drastic changes in the lake ecosystem, as well as people’s livelihoods and the ways the access food. With funding from the National Science Foundation and in collaboration with UC Berkeley researchers who were interested in better understanding coupled human and natural systems, in 2012 more in-depth studies were launched to better understand the phenomena of change in human and ecosystem health.
Program Description:
Mfangano residents rely integrally on the health of the Lake Victoria fishery, which, in turn, provides for food security, livelihoods, and well-being. Rapid changes in the fishery, beginning in the 1960s with the introduction of Nile Perch, have long had rippling effects for local people. The Nile perch introduction precipitated tremendous changes on land, including migration to the lake, increased fishing pressure, and high rates of HIV around the Lake’s shores. Today, shifts in the ecosystem – both the fish species being harvested and declines in fish catch – continue to impact those that live around the lake. In the Mfangano RECH study, we integrate ecological, socioeconomic and health analyses to illuminate and predict how fish availability, household fish access, household wealth and livelihoods, and human health interact. Our results will have particular implications for Mfangano Island and Lake Victoria, and we hope they will also provide insight into other coupled human and natural systems.
Program Activities:
- Ecological Monitoring: In collaboration with Mfangano’s Beach Management Units (BMUs), we monitor fish catch at each of the 20 BMUs around the island.
- Household Surveys: Working with 300 local households, we collect longitudinal household data to understand the inter-related facets of fishery access, use and consumption; livelihood activities, income, and food security; and household morbidity, child health, and child development
- Community Collaborations: We report back results to local BMUs and households, and we work to translate our research results into nutrition and livelihoods programming for Organic Health Response (OHR), a community-based organization working to combat HIV/AIDS on Mfangano Island. We are also expanding collaborations with both Kenyan and international students and organizations.
Partners:
- Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI)
- Organic Health Response
- University of California, Berkeley
- University of California, San Francisco (UCSF)
- Shamba Maisha Project
- US Agency for International Development (USAID)
- National Science Foundation (NSF)
We continue to be interested in strengthening collaborations with other researchers!
Contact: Katie Fiorella, RECH Manager: kfiorella@organichealthresponse.org
