US-Israel Collab: A structural and multiepistemic approach to modeling Brucella transmission along complex networks in Bedouin communities

Zoonotic diseases are diseases that animals give to humans. SARS-CoV-2, the cause of COVD-19, is a zoonotic disease, and the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of both zoonotic diseases, and mutual trust between public health institutions and the public whose health they are intended to safeguard. To effectively control zoonoses, we need a better understanding of exactly how they are transmitted, and how trust-and its absence-influences that transmission. Brucellosis is a zoonosis caused by a bacteria that is present worldwide, including the US. The most serious form is caused by the bacteria Brucella melitensis, which is spread by sheep and goats when a person drinks or eats milk or cheese that hasn't been pasteurized, or when people assist a sheep or goat who is giving birth. In animals, the disease causes pregnancy losses and reduced milk production. In humans, the disease also causes pregnancy losses, as well as fever, headaches, back pain, physical weakness, and fatigue that can last for months or even years. In some cases, severe neurological and heart effects can also be seen. The project leverages the strong US-Israel research collaboration to advance the knowledge of the more-than-bio-physical drivers of interspecies disease transmission, focusing on Brucella melitensis but generalizable to other zoonotic diseases. This project works with Bedouin communities in southern Israel, where Brucella burden is among the highest in the world, second only to Syria pre-war and likely worsening since. These communities exhibit extremely high levels of institutional distrust and experience ongoing urbanization. This provides a model setting for examining how distrust, urbanization, and zoonoses-a triad being replicated throughout the world-collectively impact humans, animals, and livelihoods. The research tests the hypothesis that institutional distrust and population displacement to urban centers increase the density of human-animal contact networks, facilitating the transmission of brucellosis. Objective 1 aims to measure human-animal contact networks among six Bedouin communities in southern Israel using qualitative data, quantitative data, and experience-based knowledge. These data support Objective 2 to model synthetic human-animal networks and develop a new method for generating Brucella genomes, applied to samples collected from humans, livestock, and environments. Subsequent tasks for Objective 3 include fitting and validating an epidemic network model using these synthetic networks and Brucella genomes and applying this model to test the research hypothesis by exploring counterfactual scenarios defined by distrust and urbanization, developed through participatory methods. These methods and insights afford broad applicability beyond this empirical setting, to other Brucella systems and zoonotic diseases throughout the world. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.