Assessing Malaria Risk in 19th Century Tucson, Arizona

Summary

Malaria is thought to have been brought to the Americas by early Spanish explorers. By the late 19th century, malaria had spread through human populations throughout tropical and temperate areas of the Americas, including the American Southwest. Historical documents, maps, and modern GIS data layers (e.g., DEM, soils, vegetation, land use, streams) from the area around Tucson, Arizona, were consulted and entered into ArcGIS (v.10) in order to produce a map of potential vector breeding locations based on a flood water accumulation model. The ArcGIS model and subsequent statistical analyses revealed that nearly the entire Tucson Basin would have been at high risk for malaria transmission, but historical records suggest that malaria differentially targeted certain demographics. Why? This research attempts to tell the story of how cultural and social practices interact with environmental patterns of climate and vector distribution to determine risk of malaria transmission in Tucson.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 21987