Examination of geriatric care processes implemented in level 1 and level 2 geriatric emergency departments.

Introduction: Older adults constitute a large and growing proportion of the population and have unique care needs in the emergency department (ED) setting. The geriatric ED accreditation program aims to improve emergency care provided to older adults by standardizing care provided across accredited geriatric EDs (GED) and through implementation of geriatric-specific care processes. The purpose of this study was to evaluate select care processes at accredited level 1 and level 2 GEDs. Methods: This was a cross-sectional analysis of a cohort of level 1 and level 2 GEDs that received accreditation between May 7, 2018 and March 1, 2021. We a priori selected five GED care processes for analysis: initiatives related to delirium, screening for dementia, assessment of function and functional decline, geriatric falls, and minimizing medication-related adverse events. For all protocols, a trained research assistant abstracted information on the tool used or care process, which patients received the interventions, and staff members were involved in the care process; additional information was abstracted specific to individual care processes. Results: A total of 35 level 1 and 2 GEDs were included in this analysis. Among care processes studied, geriatric falls were the most common (31 GEDs, 89%) followed by geriatric pain management (25 GEDs, 71%), minimizing the use of potentially inappropriate medications (24 EDs, 69%), delirium (22 GEDs, 63%), medication reconciliation (21 GEDs, 60%), functional assessment (20 GEDs, 57%), and dementia screening (17 GEDs, 49%). For protocols related to delirium, dementia, function, and geriatric falls, sites used an array of different screening tools and there was heterogeneity in who performed the screening and which patients were assessed. Medication reconciliation protocols leveraged pharmacists, pharmacy technicians and/or nurses. Protocols on avoiding potentially inappropriate medication administration generally focused on ED administration of medications and used the BEERs criteria, and few sites indicated whether pain medications protocols had dosing modifications for age and/or renal function. Conclusion: This study provides a snapshot of care processes implemented in level 1 and level 2 accredited GEDs and demonstrates significant heterogeny in how these care processes are implemented.

Reach and Adoption of a Geriatric Emergency Department Accreditation Program in the United States.

STUDY OBJECTIVE: The objectives of this study were to describe the reach and adoption of Geriatric Emergency Department Accreditation (GEDA) program and care processes instituted at accredited geriatric emergency departments (EDs). METHODS: We analyzed a cross-section of a cohort of US EDs that received GEDA from May 2018 to March 2021. We obtained data from the American College of Emergency Physicians and publicly available sources. Data included GEDA level, geographic location, urban/rural designation, and care processes instituted. Frequencies and proportions and median and interquartile ranges were used to summarize categorical and continuous data, respectively. RESULTS: Over the study period, 225 US geriatric ED accreditations were issued and included in our analysis-14 Level 1, 21 Level 2, and 190 Level 3 geriatric EDs; 5 geriatric EDs reapplied and received higher-level accreditation after initial accreditation at a lower level. Only 9 geriatric EDs were in rural regions. There was significant heterogeneity in protocols enacted at geriatric EDs; minimizing urinary catheter use and fall prevention were the most common. CONCLUSION: There has been rapid growth in geriatric EDs, driven by Level 3 accreditation. Most geriatric EDs are in urban areas, indicating the potential need for expansion beyond these areas. Future research evaluating the impact of GEDA on health care utilization and patient-oriented outcomes is needed.

ED-DEL: Development of a change package and toolkit for delirium in the emergency department.

Delirium is a common and deadly problem in the emergency department affecting up to 30% of older adult patients. The 2013 Geriatric Emergency Department guidelines were developed to address the unique needs of the growing older population and identified delirium as a high priority area. The emergency department (ED) environment presents unique challenges for the identification and management of delirium, including patient crowding, time pressures, competing priorities, variable patient acuity, and limitations in available patient information. Accordingly, protocols developed for inpatient units may not be appropriate for use in the ED setting. We created a Delirium Change Package and Toolkit in the Emergency Department (ED-DEL) to provide protocols and guidance for implementing a delirium program in the ED setting. This article describes the multistep process by which the ED-DEL program was created and the key components of the program. Our ultimate goal is to create a resource that can be disseminated widely and used to improve delirium identification, prevention, and management in older adults in the ED.

Moving the needle on fall prevention: A Geriatric Emergency Care Applied Research (GEAR) Network scoping review and consensus statement.

BACKGROUND: Although falls are common, costly, and often preventable, emergency department (ED)-initiated fall screening and prevention efforts are rare. The Geriatric Emergency Medicine Applied Research Falls core (GEAR-Falls) was created to identify existing research gaps and to prioritize future fall research foci. METHODS: GEAR's 49 transdisciplinary stakeholders included patients, geriatricians, ED physicians, epidemiologists, health services researchers, and nursing scientists. We derived relevant clinical fall ED questions and summarized the applicable research evidence, adhering to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses for Scoping Reviews. The highest-priority research foci were identified at the GEAR Consensus Conference. RESULTS: We identified two clinical questions for our review (1) fall prevention interventions (32 studies) and (2) risk stratification and falls care plan (19 studies). For (1) 21 of 32 (66%) of interventions were a falls risk screening assessment and 15 of 21 (71%) of these were combined with an exercise program or physical therapy. For (2) 11 fall screening tools were identified, but none were feasible and sufficiently accurate for ED patients. For both questions, the most frequently reported study outcome was recurrent falls, but various process and patient/clinician-centered outcomes were used. Outcome ascertainment relied on self-reported falls in 18 of 32 (56%) studies for (1) and nine of 19 (47%) studies for (2). CONCLUSION: Harmonizing definitions, research methods, and outcomes is needed for direct comparison of studies. The need to identify ED-appropriate fall risk assessment tools and role of emergency medical services (EMS) personnel persists. Multifactorial interventions, especially involving exercise, are more efficacious in reducing recurrent falls, but more studies are needed to compare appropriate bundle combinations. GEAR prioritizes five research priorities: (1) EMS role in improving fall-related outcomes, (2) identifying optimal ED fall assessment tools, (3) clarifying patient-prioritized fall interventions and outcomes, (4) standardizing uniform fall ascertainment and measured outcomes, and (5) exploring ideal intervention components.

Older adult visits to the emergency department for ambulatory care sensitive conditions.

OBJECTIVES: Ambulatory-care-sensitive conditions (ACSCs) represent emergency department (ED) visits and hospital admissions that might have been avoided through earlier primary care intervention. We characterize the current frequency and cost of ACSCs among older adults (≥65 years of age) in the ED. METHODS: This study is a retrospective analysis of Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) national claims data distributed by the Research Data Assistance Center, a CMS contractor based at the University of Minnesota. We analyzed outpatient ED-based national claims data for visits made by traditional fee-for-service (FFS) Medicare beneficiaries in 2016. ACSCs were identified according to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's Prevention Quality Indicators criteria, which require that the ACSC be the primary diagnosis for the visit. Analysis was done in Alteryx and R. RESULTS: We documented nearly 1.8 million ACSC ED visits in 2016, finding that ≈10.6% of all ED visits by older adult FFS Medicare beneficiaries were associated with an ACSC. ACSC ED visits resulted in admission more often (39.7%) than non-ACSC ED visits (23.9%). Notably, 83% of patients with short-term complications from diabetes were admitted. CONCLUSIONS: ED visits for a primary diagnosis of an ACSC highlight opportunities to improve access to preventive care, particularly earlier recognition and treatment of patients' deteriorating conditions that could have potentially precluded the need for the ED visit. An opportunity exists to leverage ED-based initiatives during an ACSC ED visit to support appropriate community and care transitions of these high-risk patients.

Process Evaluation of a Community-Based Microbial Larviciding Intervention for Malaria Control in Rural Tanzania.

Microbial larviciding can be an effective component of integrated vector management malaria control schemes, although it is not commonly implemented. Moreover, quality control and evaluation of intervention activities are essential to evaluate the potential of community-based larviciding interventions. We conducted a process evaluation of a larval source management intervention in rural Tanzania where local staff were employed to apply microbial larvicide to mosquito breeding habitats with the aim of long-term reductions in malaria transmission. We developed a logic model to guide the process evaluation and then established quantitative indicators to measure intervention success. Quantitative analysis of intervention reach, exposure, and fidelity was performed to assess larvicide application, and interviews with larviciding staff were reviewed to provide context to quantitative results. Results indicate that the intervention was successful in terms of reach, as staff applied microbial larvicide at 80% of identified mosquito breeding habitats. However, the dosage of larvicide applied was sufficient to ensure larval elimination at only 26% of sites, which does not meet the standard set for intervention fidelity. We propose that insufficient training and protocol adaptation, environment and resource issues, and human error contributed to low larvicide application rates. This demonstrates how several small, context-specific details in sum can result in meaningful differences between intervention blueprint and execution. These findings may serve the design of other larval source management interventions by demonstrating the value of additional training, supervision, and measurement and evaluation of protocol adherence.

Association of dementia diagnosis with urinary tract infection in the emergency department.

OBJECTIVES: Overdiagnosis of urinary tract infections (UTI) among people living with dementia is a nationally recognized problem associated with morbidity from antibiotics as well as multidrug-resistant bacteria. However, whether this problem also exists in the emergency department (ED) is currently unknown. METHODS: To examine the association between dementia and UTI diagnosis in the ED we performed a retrospective analysis of Medicare beneficiaries older than 65 years old who presented to an ED in 2016. A diagnosis of UTI was present in 58,580 beneficiaries, and 321,479 beneficiaries without a diagnosis of UTI served as the comparison group. Our logistic regression model controlled for dementia, older age, female sex, Medicaid status, skilled nursing facility residence, history of prostate cancer, recent urinary catheter use, recurrent UTI, and multiple comorbidities. RESULTS: In our model, people living with dementia had over twice the odds (odds ratio = 2.27, 95% confidence interval = 2.21, 2.33) of being diagnosed with a UTI in the ED compared to those without dementia despite their lower prevalence of symptoms and signs localizing to the genitourinary tract (3.8% vs 8.9%, respectively). CONCLUSION: This is the first study from a national database that examines the association of dementia with UTI diagnosis among older adults who visit the ED. Our study could not establish whether the UTI diagnoses in the ED were accurate but does imply a disproportionate burden of UTI diagnoses in people living with dementia despite their lower prevalence of clinical criterion. Antimicrobial stewardship in the ED should address the complexity of UTI diagnosis in dementia.

30-Day Emergency Department Revisit Rates among Older Adults with Documented Dementia.

OBJECTIVES: Published literature on national emergency department (ED) revisit rates among older adults with dementia is sparse, despite anecdotal evidence of higher ED utilization. Thus we evaluated the odds ratio (OR) of 30-day ED revisits among older adults with dementia using a nationally representative sample. DESIGN: We assessed the frequency of claims associated with a 30-day ED revisit among Medicare beneficiaries with and without a dementia diagnosis before or at index ED visit. We used a logistic regression model controlling for dementia, age, sex, race, region, Medicaid status, transfer to a skilled nursing facility after ED, primary care physician use 12 months before index, and comorbidity. SETTING: A nationally representative sample of claims data for Medicare beneficiaries aged 65 and older who maintained continuous fee-for-service enrollment during 2015 and 2016. Only outpatient claims associated with an ED visit between January 2016 and November 2016 were included as a qualifying index encounter. PARTICIPANTS: We identified 240 249 patients without dementia and 54 622 patients for whom a dementia code was recorded in the year before the index encounter in 2016. RESULTS: Our results indicate a significant difference in unadjusted 30-day ED revisit rates among those with an ED dementia diagnoses (22.0%) compared with those without (13.9%). Our adjusted results indicated that dementia is a significant predictor of 30-day ED revisits (P < .0001). Those with a dementia diagnosis at or before the index ED visit were more likely to have experienced an ED revisit within 30 days (OR = 1.27; 95% confidence interval = 1.24-1.31). CONCLUSION: Dementia diagnoses were a significant predictor of 30-day ED revisits. Further research should assess potential reasons why dementia is associated with markedly higher revisit rates, as well as opportunities to manage and transition dementia patients from the ED back to the community more effectively. J Am Geriatr Soc 67:2254-2259, 2019.

Association Between Physical Therapy in the Emergency Department and Emergency Department Revisits for Older Adult Fallers: A Nationally Representative Analysis.

OBJECTIVES: To determine whether providing physical therapy (PT) services in the emergency department (ED) improves outcomes for older adults who fall. DESIGN: We used Medicare claims data to examine differences in recurrent fall-related ED revisit rates of older adults who presented to the ED for a ground-level fall and whether they received PT services in the ED. Our logistic regression model controlled for age, sex, Medicaid eligibility, acute injury, and certain known chronic comorbidities associated with risk of falling. SETTING: We analyzed national 2012-13 Medicare claims data for individuals aged 65 and older. PARTICIPANTS: This was a claims-based analysis. We defined an index visit as any ED claim that included an International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification E-Code indicating a ground-level fall. Visits resulting in admission were excluded, as were claims associated with an individual who died during follow-up; 17,975 of the 560,277 claims for eligible outpatient index visits included revenue center codes for PT services. MEASUREMENTS: We calculated the proportion of index visits associated with a fall-related ED revisit within 30 and 60 days and assessed differences in these proportions between individuals who did and did not receive PT services in the ED. RESULTS: Receiving PT services in the ED during an index visit for a ground-level fall was associated with a significantly lower likelihood of a fall-related ED revisit within 30 days (odds ratio (OR)=0.655, p<.001) and 60 days (OR=0.684, p<.001). CONCLUSION: Expanding PT services in the ED may reduce future fall-related ED use of older adults. Additional analyses could assess characteristics of individuals receiving PT in the ED and follow-up PT use after discharge. J Am Geriatr Soc 66:2205-2212, 2018.

Delirium as a predictor of mortality in US Medicare beneficiaries discharged from the emergency department: a national claims-level analysis up to 12 months.

BACKGROUND: Delirium is common among seniors discharged from the emergency department (ED) and associated with increased risk of mortality. Prior research has addressed mortality associated with seniors discharged from the ED with delirium, however has generally relied on data from one or a small number of institutions and at single time points. OBJECTIVES: Analyse mortality rates among seniors discharged from the ED with delirium up to 12 months at the national level. DESIGN: Retrospective cohort study. SETTING: Analysed data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services limited data sets for 2012-2013. PARTICIPANTS: Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries aged 65 years or older discharged from the ED. We focused on new incident cases of delirium, patients with any prior claims for delirium, hospice claims or end-stage renal disease were excluded. Sample size included 26 245 delirium claims, and a randomly selected sample of 262 450 controls. OUTCOME MEASURES: Mortality within 12 months after discharge from the ED, excluding patients transferred or admitted as inpatients. RESULTS: Among all beneficiaries, 46 508 (16.1%) died within 12 months, of which 39 404 (15.0%) were in the non-delirium (ie, control group) and 7104 (27.1%) were in the delirium cohort, respectively. Mortality was strongest at 30 days with an adjusted HR of 4.82 (95% CI 4.60 to 5.04). Over time, delirium was consistently associated with increased mortality risk compared with controls up to 12 months (HR 2.07; 95% CI 2.01 to 2.13). Covariates that affected mortality included older age, comorbidity and presence of dementia. CONCLUSIONS: Our results demonstrate delirium is a significant marker of mortality among seniors in the ED, and mortality risk is most salient in the first 3 months following an ED visit. Given the significant clinical and financial implications, there is a need to increase delirium screening and management within the ED to help identify and treat this potentially fatal condition.

Motivation and satisfaction among community health workers administering rapid diagnostic tests for malaria in Western Kenya.

BACKGROUND: The continued success of community case management (CCM) programs in low-resource settings depends on the ability of these programs to retain the community health workers (CHWs), many of whom are volunteers, and maintain their high-quality performance. This study aims to identify factors related to the motivation and satisfaction of CHWs working in a malaria CCM program in two sub-counties in Western Kenya. METHODS: We interviewed 70 CHWs who were trained to administer malaria rapid diagnostic tests as part of a broader study evaluating a malaria CCM program. We identified factors related to CHWs' motivation and their satisfaction with participation in the program, as well as the feasibility of program scale-up. We used principal components analysis to develop an overall CHW satisfaction score and assessed associations between this score and individual CHW characteristics as well as their experiences in the program. RESULTS: The majority of CHWs reported that they were motivated to perform their role in this malaria CCM program by a personal desire to help their community (69%). The most common challenge CHWs reported was a lack of community understanding about malaria diagnostic testing and CHWs' role in the program (39%). Most CHWs (89%) reported that their involvement in the diagnostic testing intervention had either a neutral or a net positive effect on their other CHW activities, including improving skills applicable to other tasks. CHWs who said they strongly agreed with the statement that their work with the malaria program was appreciated by the community had a 0.76 standard deviation (SD) increase in their overall satisfaction score (95% confidence interval CI = 0.10-1.24, P = 0.03). Almost all CHWs (99%) strongly agreed that they wanted to continue their role in the malaria program. CONCLUSIONS: Overall, CHWs reported high satisfaction with their role in community-based malaria diagnosis, though they faced challenges primarily related to community understanding and appreciation of the services they provided. CHWs' perceptions that the malaria program generally did not interfere with their other activities is encouraging for the sustainability and scale-up of similar CHW programs.

Innovative public-private partnership to target subsidised antimalarials: a study protocol for a cluster randomised controlled trial to evaluate a community intervention in Western Kenya.

INTRODUCTION: There are concerns of inappropriate use of subsidised antimalarials due to the large number of fevers treated in the informal sector with minimal access to diagnostic testing. Targeting antimalarial subsidies to confirmed malaria cases can lead to appropriate, effective therapy. There is evidence that community health volunteers (CHVs) can be trained to safely and correctly use rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs). This study seeks to evaluate the public health impact of targeted antimalarial subsidies delivered through a partnership between CHVs and the private retail sector. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: We are conducting a stratified cluster-randomised controlled trial in Western Kenya where 32 community units were randomly assigned to the intervention or control (usual care) arm. In the intervention arm, CHVs offer free RDT testing to febrile individuals and, conditional on a positive test result, a voucher to purchase a WHO-qualified artemisinin combination therapy (ACT) at a reduced fixed price in the retail sector.Study outcomes in individuals with a febrile illness in the previous 4 weeks will be ascertained through population-based cross-sectional household surveys at four time points: baseline, 6, 12 and 18 months postbaseline. The primary outcome is the proportion of fevers that receives a malaria test from any source (CHV or health facility). The main secondary outcome is the proportion of ACTs used by people with a malaria-positive test. Other secondary outcomes include: the proportion of ACTs used by people without a test and adherence to test results. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: The protocol has been approved by the National Institutes of Health, the Moi University School of Medicine Institutional Research and Ethics Committee and the Duke University Medical Center Institutional Review Board. Findings will be reported on clinicalstrials.gov, in peer-reviewed publications and through stakeholder meetings including those with the Kenyan Ministry of Health. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: Pre-results, NCT02461628.

Cost of microbial larviciding for malaria control in rural Tanzania.

OBJECTIVE: Microbial larviciding may be a potential supplement to conventional malaria vector control measures, but scant information on its relative implementation costs and effectiveness, especially in rural areas, is an impediment to expanding its uptake. We perform a costing analysis of a seasonal microbial larviciding programme in rural Tanzania. METHODS: We evaluated the financial and economic costs from the perspective of the public provider of a 3-month, community-based larviciding intervention implemented in twelve villages in the Mvomero District of Tanzania in 2012-2013. Cost data were collected from financial reports and invoices and through discussion with programme administrators. Sensitivity analysis explored the robustness of our results to varying key parameters. RESULTS: Over the 2-year study period, approximately 6873 breeding sites were treated with larvicide. The average annual economic costs of the larviciding intervention in rural Tanzania are estimated at 2014 US$ 1.44 per person protected per year (pppy), US$ 6.18 per household and US$ 4481.88 per village, with the larvicide and staffing accounting for 14% and 58% of total costs, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: We found the costs pppy of implementing a seasonal larviciding programme in rural Tanzania to be comparable to the costs of other larviciding programmes in urban Tanzania and rural Kenya. Further research should evaluate the cost-effectiveness of larviciding relative to, and in combination with, other vector control strategies in rural settings.

Assessing the independent and combined effects of subsidies for antimalarials and rapid diagnostic testing on fever management decisions in the retail sector: results from a factorial randomised trial in western Kenya.

OBJECTIVES: There is an urgent need to understand how to improve targeting of artemisinin combination therapy (ACT) to patients with confirmed malaria infection, including subsidised ACTs sold over-the-counter. We hypothesised that offering an antimalarial subsidy conditional on a positive malaria rapid diagnostic test (RDT) would increase uptake of testing and improve rational use of ACTs. METHODS: We designed a 2×2 factorial randomised experiment evaluating 2 levels of subsidy for RDTs and ACTs. Between July 2014 and June 2015, 444 individuals with a malaria-like illness who had not sought treatment were recruited from their homes. We used scratch cards to allocate participants into 4 groups in a ratio of 1:1:1:1. Participants were eligible for an unsubsidised or fully subsidised RDT and 1 of 2 levels of ACT subsidy (current retail price or an additional subsidy conditional on a positive RDT). Treatment decisions were documented 1 week later. Our primary outcome was uptake of malaria testing. Secondary outcomes evaluated ACT consumption among those with a negative test, a positive test or no test. RESULTS: Offering a free RDT increased the probability of testing by 18.6 percentage points (adjusted probability difference (APD), 95% CI 5.9 to 31.3). An offer of a conditional ACT subsidy did not have an additional effect on the probability of malaria testing when the RDT was free (APD=2.7; 95% CI -8.6 to 14.1). However, receiving the conditional ACT subsidy increased the probability of taking an ACT following a positive RDT by 19.5 percentage points (APD, 95% CI 2.2 to 36.8). Overall, the proportion who took ACT following a negative test was lower than those who took ACT without being tested, indicated improved targeting among those who were tested. CONCLUSIONS: Both subsidies improved appropriate fever management, demonstrating the impact of these costs on decision making. However, the conditional ACT subsidy did not increase testing. We conclude that each of the subsidies primarily impacts the most immediate decision. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: NCT02199977.

Identifying barriers in the malaria control policymaking process in East Africa: insights from stakeholders and a structured literature review.

BACKGROUND: The complexity of malaria and public health policy responses presents social, financial, cultural, and institutional barriers to policymaking at multiple stages in the policy process. These barriers reduce the effectiveness of health policy in achieving national goals. METHODS: We conducted a structured literature review to characterize malaria policy barriers, and we engaged stakeholders through surveys and workshops in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. We compared common barriers presented in the scientific literature to barriers reported by malaria policy stakeholders. RESULTS: The barriers identified in the structured literature review differ from those described in policymaker surveys. The malaria policy literature emphasizes barriers in the implementation stage of policymaking such as those posed by health systems and specific intervention tools. Stakeholder responses placed greater emphasis on the political nature of policymaking, the disconnect between research and policymaking, and the need for better intersectoral collaboration. CONCLUSIONS: Identifying barriers to effective malaria control activities provides opportunities to improve health and other outcomes. Such barriers can occur at multiple stages and scales. Employing a stakeholder - designed decision tool framework has the potential to improve existing policies and ultimately the functioning of malaria related institutions. Furthermore, improved coordination between malaria research and policymaking would improve the quality and efficiency of interventions leading to better population health.

Sustaining the gains made in malaria control and elimination.

Significant progress has been made in the last 25 years to reduce the malaria burden, but considerable challenges remain. These gains have resulted from large investments in a range of control measures targeting malaria. Fana and co-authors find a strong relationship between education level and net usage with malaria parasitemia in pregnant women, suggesting the need for targeted control strategies. Mayala and co-workers find important links between agriculture and malaria with implications for inter-sectoral collaboration for malaria control.

Factors influencing malaria control policy-making in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.

BACKGROUND: Policy decisions for malaria control are often difficult to make as decision-makers have to carefully consider an array of options and respond to the needs of a large number of stakeholders. This study assessed the factors and specific objectives that influence malaria control policy decisions, as a crucial first step towards developing an inclusive malaria decision analysis support tool (MDAST). METHODS: Country-specific stakeholder engagement activities using structured questionnaires were carried out in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. The survey respondents were drawn from a non-random purposeful sample of stakeholders, targeting individuals in ministries and non-governmental organizations whose policy decisions and actions are likely to have an impact on the status of malaria. Summary statistics across the three countries are presented in aggregate. RESULTS: Important findings aggregated across countries included a belief that donor preferences and agendas were exerting too much influence on malaria policies in the countries. Respondents on average also thought that some relevant objectives such as engaging members of parliament by the agency responsible for malaria control in a particular country were not being given enough consideration in malaria decision-making. Factors found to influence decisions regarding specific malaria control strategies included donor agendas, costs, effectiveness of interventions, health and environmental impacts, compliance and/acceptance, financial sustainability, and vector resistance to insecticides. CONCLUSION: Malaria control decision-makers in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania take into account health and environmental impacts as well as cost implications of different intervention strategies. Further engagement of government legislators and other policy makers is needed in order to increase funding from domestic sources, reduce donor dependence, sustain interventions and consolidate current gains in malaria.

Community knowledge and acceptance of larviciding for malaria control in a rural district of east-central Tanzania.

The use of microbial larvicides, a form of larval source management, is a less commonly used malaria control intervention that nonetheless has significant potential as a component of an integrated vector management strategy. We evaluated community acceptability of larviciding in a rural district in east-central Tanzania using data from 962 household surveys, 12 focus group discussions, and 24 in-depth interviews. Most survey respondents trusted in the safety (73.1%) and efficacy of larviciding, both with regards to mosquito control (92.3%) and to reduce malaria infection risk (91.9%). Probing these perceptions using a Likert scale provides a more detailed picture. Focus group participants and key informants were also receptive to larviciding, but stressed the importance of sensitization before its implementation. Overall, 73.4% of survey respondents expressed a willingness to make a nominal household contribution to a larviciding program, a proportion which decreased as the proposed contribution increased. The lower-bound mean willingness to pay is estimated at 2,934 Tanzanian Shillings (approximately US$1.76) per three month period. We present a multivariate probit regression analysis examining factors associated with willingness to pay. Overall, our findings point to a receptive environment in a rural setting in Tanzania for the use of microbial larvicides in malaria control.

A randomized longitudinal factorial design to assess malaria vector control and disease management interventions in rural Tanzania.

The optimization of malaria control strategies is complicated by constraints posed by local health systems, infrastructure, limited resources, and the complex interactions between infection, disease, and treatment. The purpose of this paper is to describe the protocol of a randomized factorial study designed to address this research gap. This project will evaluate two malaria control interventions in Mvomero District, Tanzania: (1) a disease management strategy involving early detection and treatment by community health workers using rapid diagnostic technology; and (2) vector control through community-supported larviciding. Six study villages were assigned to each of four groups (control, early detection and treatment, larviciding, and early detection and treatment plus larviciding). The primary endpoint of interest was change in malaria infection prevalence across the intervention groups measured during annual longitudinal cross-sectional surveys. Recurring entomological surveying, household surveying, and focus group discussions will provide additional valuable insights. At baseline, 962 households across all 24 villages participated in a household survey; 2,884 members from 720 of these households participated in subsequent malariometric surveying. The study design will allow us to estimate the effect sizes of different intervention mixtures. Careful documentation of our study protocol may also serve other researchers designing field-based intervention trials.