Features
The Medical Detective
Veterinary epidemiologist studies how diseases move from animals to people in Arctic and Central America
BY ANDREW VOWLES
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| Prof. Andria Jones says she can't think of a better place than Guelph to study zoonotic diseases. Photo by Martin Schwalbe |
It's not CSI. But Prof. Andria Jones, Population Medicine, says there's an element of whodunit in her work, whether it's investigating diseases in the Canadian North and Central America or looking into people's motives for shunning tap water and embracing bottled water in parts of Canada.
Referring to how epidemiologists must tease out the connections among human and animal health and the environment, the Guelph DVM and PhD graduate says: “I just find it fascinating. We get to be medical detectives and learn how disease works.”
Having come back to U of G this summer after teaching at Memorial University in Newfoundland, Jones plans to turn her magnifying lens on two related projects: one in the Canadian Arctic, the other in Guatemala. Both involve zoonotic diseases — infectious diseases spread from animals to people.
Looking north, she is studying disease-causing parasites in wildlife used for food, including seals, walruses and polar bears. Afflictions caused by such bugs as Trichinella and Toxoplasma pose health problems in northern communities, but she says it's difficult to gauge the extent of the problem.
Working with other researchers under a project funded by the International Polar Year (IPY) 2007/08, she hopes to learn just how widespread these diseases are across Labrador, Nunavik, the Northwest Territories and Yukon. Having a baseline will help in monitoring disease spread and will allow scientists to gauge the effects of climate change on dispersal patterns, she says.
Jones has visited Northern Canada and expects to return. For sample collection, the researchers work with local hunters and trappers and rely on building partnerships with northern communities.
This project is led by Manon Simard, a wildlife parasitologist with the Makivik Corp., which manages funding provided to the Inuit of Nunavik under the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement. It's one of 44 Canadian scientific projects to receive federal funding under IPY 2007/08.
(The International Polar Year — actually two years — involves thousands of scientists from more than 60 countries in the largest-ever international scientific program in the Arctic and Antarctic. Another Canadian project called “Communities in the Changing Arctic” is led by U of G geography professor Barry Smit.)
In Guatemala, Jones has developed a long-term study intended to help control the dog population, prevent rabies and track zoonotic diseases such as echinococcosis (dog tapeworm). She says numerous dogs in several mountain villages in western Guatemala are probably involved in transmitting disease to humans, in addition to posing risks of physical attacks.
She began this research with a Montreal collaborator after a U.S. Peace Corps worker discussed the canine overpopulation with her departmental colleague Prof. David Waltner-Toews, president of Veterinarians Without Borders Canada.
“We're looking for a more sustainable way to control the population,” says Jones.
As with the Arctic project, this study involves working with communities to learn more about the problem and to enlist help in finding solutions. It's as much a cultural challenge as a scientific one, she says, contrasting the approach with “fly-in” research that often yields little lasting benefit.
“If it's not culturally acceptable, the solution is not going to work on a long-term basis,” says Jones, recalling a useful bit of advice she received from one indigenous chief: “Sit down, be quiet and listen. You'll learn so much more.”
She learned some of those lessons during her PhD studies completed in 2005 with Prof. Cate Dewey, now chair of the Department of Population Medicine. Working with the local public health unit, Jones studied public perceptions of drinking water quality in Hamilton.
Her surveys and focus groups found that many people shunned tap water for bottled water or used some form of water treatment in their home. Many were leery about pollution and water-borne illnesses — fears that could be traced to the Walkerton tainted-water tragedy — and assumed that bottled water underwent more rigorous testing than tap water.
That's not necessarily the case, says Jones, adding that municipalities need to better inform residents about the relative merits of tap water to counter negative media headlines. (At home in Guelph, she drinks tap water. That orange Nalgene bottle on her desk reflects a lack of water fountains around her office rather than concerns about water quality, she explains.) She found similar results in Newfoundland during her time at Memorial.
Here at U of G, Jones is teaching graduate and undergraduate courses in epidemiology. She expects to work with other researchers involved with the Canadian Centre for Public Health and Zoonoses based on campus. Referring to that agency and to other researchers in her department and across the Ontario Veterinary College, she says: “I can't think of a better place to study zoonotic diseases, and Guelph has always just felt like home.”