How COVID spreads in households and communities in low-resource countries
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-11495175 · Data updated 2026-11-12
This project measures how COVID-19 moves between people in homes and communities in low-resource countries to help shape better prevention and vaccination choices.
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) | $3,454 |
| NIH project number | 3R01AI161399-06S1 |
| Project ID | NIH-11495175 on NIH RePORTER |
Who could benefit from this research
✓Could help
Ideal participants are people living in the specific low-resource communities enrolled in the GlobalMix program, including households with children and adults willing to answer contact surveys and provide respiratory (and sometimes blood) samples over time.
✕Less likely to help
People not living in the study communities or those seeking immediate treatment for their own illness are unlikely to gain direct personal benefit from participation.
What this research studies
If you join, the team will follow households over time in communities where GlobalMix works, asking people about their daily contacts and collecting respiratory (and sometimes blood) samples when someone gets sick. They will track who infects whom within households and combine that with detailed contact patterns from the community. That information will be used to build models that show how interventions like vaccines, masks, school closures, or stay-at-home actions could change spread. The work focuses on settings with limited resources so results better reflect local lives and conditions.
Why it matters
Potential benefit: If successful, the findings could help design prevention and vaccination strategies that better protect people in low-resource communities.
How similar studies have gone: Previous household transmission and social-contact studies have informed public-health guidance, but combining longitudinal sampling with highly detailed contact data in low-resource settings is relatively new.
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.