Fine Scale Replicable Risk Mapping in an Informal Settlement: A Case Study of Mathare, Nairobi

Slums and informal settlements continue to pose considerable health challenges, mostly associated with the unavailability of basic amenities and proper waste management. While mapping where risks occur, such as the location of features associated with disease is obviously beneficial, the spatial data required is frequently not available, especially on a continuous basis. In this paper, we employ a robust, cost-effective, and efficient means of monitoring for these types of environments, using the Mathare SIS in Kenya as an illustration. We show how spatial videos can be used to capture microenvironments around homes or other key features such as toilets and water points, to show localized environmental risks such as standing water and mud. We also show the utility of this approach to capture longitudinal change. The objective of this paper is to illustrate how this method can map changes in the spatial variability of health risks in a challenging environment.