How COVID-19 spreads in low-resource communities
Official title: COVID Global Mix - Global Mix / Investigation of COVID-19 Disease Parameters for Transmission Models in Low-Resource Settings
Funded at Ut Southwestern Medical Center · NIH-11495182 · Data updated 2026-11-12
This project measures how COVID-19 moves through households and communities in low-resource countries to help shape better ways to prevent infections.
Quick facts
| Grant type | R01 grant |
|---|---|
| Study type | NIH-funded research |
| Funding institution | Ut Southwestern Medical Center NIH-funded |
| Lab location | 1 site (Dallas, United States) |
| Project start | March 1, 2022 |
| Project end | February 28, 2027 |
| Funding year | 2026 |
| Award (this year) | $82,554 |
| NIH project number | 3R01AI161399-06S3 |
| Project ID | NIH-11495182 on NIH RePORTER |
Who could benefit from this research
✓Could help
Ideal participants are people living in households at participating field sites in low- and middle-income settings who can take part in ongoing surveillance and provide periodic respiratory samples and contact information.
✕Less likely to help
People who do not live in the study communities or cannot participate in the household surveillance are unlikely to get direct benefit from joining this project.
What this research studies
If you or your household join, researchers will follow households over time and collect respiratory and other samples when people get sick. They will record detailed social contact patterns and combine those data with existing GlobalMix contact maps to understand who infects whom. The team will use these real-world measurements to build computer models tailored to low- and middle-income settings and to test the likely effects of vaccines, masks, school closures, and stay-at-home policies. Data are collected repeatedly over months to capture household transmission and community spread.
Why it matters
Potential benefit: If successful, the work could guide locally appropriate vaccination and public-health measures that reduce COVID-19 spread in resource-limited communities.
How similar studies have gone: Previous household transmission and social-contact studies have successfully informed public-health models for respiratory diseases, and this work builds on those established methods.
Where this research is happening
-
Ut Southwestern Medical Center
Dallas, United States Active
Researchers
- Principal investigator: Omer, Saad B. — Ut Southwestern Medical Center
- Study coordinator: Omer, Saad B.
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About this research
- This is an active NIH-funded research project — typically early-stage science, not a clinical trial accepting patient enrollment.
- Some NIH-funded labs run parallel clinical studies or seek volunteers for related work. To check, contact the principal investigator or institution listed above.
- For full project details, budget, and progress reports, visit the official NIH RePORTER page.