Sociology P.h.D. student Álvaro Padilla Pozo is substantively interested in understanding how individuals' social context impacts their daily life experiences, and estimating the effects of climate change on demographic outcomes. Methodologically, he is interested in leveraging spatial, GPS, and individual-level real-time data to understand the reproduction of social inequality, and developing conceptual and empirical tools to assess and correct biases emerging from computational and non-probabilistic sources of data collection.
Álvaro published work in Nature in September 2024 (along with Frederic Bartumeus, Tomás Montalvo, Isis Sanpera-Calbet, Andrea Valsecchi and John R. B. Palmer) examining the representativeness of mosquito reports from citizen scientists and developing a method to account for their spatial sampling biases.
Assessing and correcting neighborhood socioeconomic spatial sampling biases in citizen science mosquito data collection
Abstract: Climatic, ecological, and socioeconomic factors are facilitating the spread of mosquito-borne diseases, heightening the importance of vector surveillance and control. Citizen science is proving to be an effective tool to track mosquito populations, but methods are needed to detect and account for small scale sampling biases in citizen science surveillance. In this article we combine two types of traditional mosquito surveillance records with data from the Mosquito Alert citizen science system to explore the ways in which the socioeconomic characteristics of urban neighborhoods result in sampling biases in citizen scientists’ mosquito reports, while also shaping the spatial distribution of mosquito populations themselves. We use Barcelona, Spain, as an example, and focus on Aedes albopictus, an invasive vector species of concern worldwide. Our results suggest citizen scientists’ sampling effort is focused more in Barcelona’s lower and middle income census tracts than in its higher income ones, whereas Ae. albopictus populations are concentrated in the city’s upper-middle income tracts. High resolution estimates of the spatial distribution of Ae. albopictus risk can be improved by controlling for citizen scientists’ sampling effort, making it possible to provide better insights for efficiently targeting control efforts. Our methodology can be replicated in other cities faced with vector mosquitoes to improve public health responses to mosquito-borne diseases, which impose massive burdens on communities worldwide.
