$1.6M to fund international study on built environment, malaria

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - A team of researchers from Penn State and Warwick University has been awarded a $1.6 million international Belmont Forum's Collaborative Research Action project by the U.S. National Science Foundation and UK Research and Innovation's Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). Led by Penn State researchers, the project will explore how building design, infrastructure and development decisions can help reduce malaria risk worldwide.

The project team includes four Penn State faculty members: Esther Obonyo, lead investigator and professor of engineering design and of architectural engineering in the Penn State College of Engineering; Ida Djenontin, assistant professor of geography in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences; James Mutunga, assistant professor of biology at Penn State Harrisburg; and Supraja Sudharsan, assistant teaching professor in the College of Engineering's School of Engineering Design and Innovation. Obonyo and Djenontin are also faculty members of the Institute of Energy and the Environment at Penn State.

This transdisciplinary project grew out of a real-world challenge in Sub-Saharan Africa, Obonyo said: how to keep mosquitoes out of homes without trapping heat and cutting off lifesaving, natural ventilation where wood fuel systems are used.

The project brings together researchers and non-academic partners from multiple countries to study how housing and infrastructure design - from transportation to water management, collectively referred to as the built environment - interact with extreme weather events to influence malaria risk. The work aims to produce practical tools and policy guidance that help households, built environment professionals and policy makers to mainstream malaria prevention into everyday infrastructure development decisions.

Bruce Logan, director of the Institute of Energy and the Environment, said viewing malaria as both a built environment and public health challenge underscores Penn State's commitment to collaborative, solutions-driven research.

"Penn State brings together expertise across engineering, health, disaster science and the social sciences to tackle challenges that cannot be solved in isolation," Logan said. "By approaching malaria through the lens of the built environment, this project reflects the University's commitment to working with partners around the world to develop practical, evidence-based solutions."

-Bruce Logan , director, Institute of Energy and the Environment

Obonyo said her interest in malaria-proof housing was inspired by conversations with global health colleagues working on housing-based malaria interventions in Ghana.

"They were sealing openings in homes to keep mosquitoes out," Obonyo said. "I pointed out that they were inadvertently keeping out fresh air in places where people rely on natural ventilation to reduce indoor pollutants and extreme heat. If homes become unbearably hot, people extend their outdoor hours to evening hours when malaria-carrying mosquitoes are very active."

Obonyo said that further deliberations on "building for disease prevention" revealed how malaria risk is deeply connected to housing quality, infrastructure, urban growth and extreme weather events. In the rapidly urbanizing global south, there are several large-scale construction projects. This means at any given time, there is extensive excavation work, which when coupled with inadequate drainage creates ideal breeding conditions for mosquitoes.

"Warmer temperatures combined with flooding and stagnant water from construction sites effectively create maternity wards for mosquitoes," Obonyo said. "We have answers to these challenges. Several of them were developed and implemented over a century ago during the construction of the Panama Canal. But as the world gets warmer, we have more areas for malaria-causing mosquitoes to thrive. At the same time, conventional materials and technologies have left over one billion people inadequately housed."

-Tonya L. Peeples , Harold and Inge Marcus Dean of Engineering

Despite these realities, building design, construction and maintenance practices in the global south as still largely based on business-as-usual approaches, Obonyo said. The team will conduct comparative case studies in Central America and Sub-Saharan Africa, working closely with community members, policymakers and non-academic partners to co-produce knowledge that can be translated into action.

"This project is a perfect example of how Penn State engineering researchers leverage interdisciplinary work and international partnerships to bring research out of the lab and into the world, solving pressing global problems and positively impacting communities near and far," said Tonya L. Peeples, the Harold and Inge Marcus Dean of Engineering.

Local engagement is central to the project's approach. During a previous Belmont Forum project in Tanzania, Obonyo said that residents emphasized that malaria, inadequate housing and poor infrastructure are inseparable challenges.

"When we asked people about their experience during the pandemic, one resident said very plainly, 'Our main problem is malaria,'" Obonyo said. "Communities understand these challenges better than anyone, and many are eager to collaborate as co-creators of solutions."

-Esther Obonyo , lead investigator and professor of engineering design and of architectural engineering, College of Engineering

By working with local partners who understand cultural context and on-the-ground realities, the research team aims to ensure its findings are both scientifically rigorous and practically relevant.

"If this project is successful, malaria prevention will become a routine consideration in building sector decisions, from site selection and building design to construction and operation," Obonyo said.

The project places particular emphasis on the informal housing sector, often referred to as "Jua Kali" in East Africa, where cost-effective building solutions can reach large populations quickly. Obonyo said success would mean affordable malaria-preventive building components being distributed through informal markets.

Beyond physical design solutions, the project also focuses on capacity building. Bernadette Woods Placky, a Penn State alumna, meteorologist and science communication expert, will co-lead translation findings for journalists and public audiences, while professional organizations will integrate results into continuing education programs.

Looking ahead, Obonyo said the scale of global construction remains a pressing concern. According to Architecture 2030, the world is constructing the equivalent of New York City in new floor area every month, much of it in malaria-prone, global south regions.

"How do we move from successful pilot projects to solutions that reach the more than one billion people who are still inadequately housed?" she said. "This project is about translating evidence into policy and practice at the scale the moment demands."

Other project partner organizations are Ardhi University, Tanzania; Instituto Superior de Ciência e Tecnologia de Moçambique, ISCTEM, Mozambique; Roll Back Malaria's Multisectoral Working Group; Malaria Consortium; Global Council for Science and the Environment; Climate Central; Fundación Panameña de Turismo Sostenible, APTSO, Panama; Nigerian Medical Research Institute; Kenya Medical Research Institute; the Architectural Association of Kenya; and Ad Visions, Kenya.

The Belmont Forum is an international partnership of funding agencies that supports global environmental change research through transdisciplinary collaboration and stakeholder engagement. The U.S. National Science Foundation is an independent federal agency that supports science and engineering in all 50 states and U.S. territories. The UK Research and Innovation is a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology with NERC as the driving force of investment in environmental science.