In January 2009, eleven information science students taught by Professor Victoria Szabo entered a partnership with WISER and a team of researchers lead by Dr. Sherryl Broverman, Dr. Eve Puffer, and Dr. Eric Green of Duke and New York University. Together, the students (developers of ISISmapping), researchers, and WISER (Women's Institute of Secondary Education and Research) will investigate the potential of participatory mapping to impact gender disparities in health and education in Muhuru Bay, Kenya.

Muhuru Bay, a small fishing village located in Nyanza Province, Kenya, has the highest HIV prevalence in the country at 15.3% (2007 Kenya AIDS Indicator Survey, Nyanza). Muhuru Bay has an even higher prevalence of AIDS at 38%. Given the location of Muhuru Bay on the shore of Lake Victoria, women and girls of the community are often pressured by fishermen to pay for goods with transactional sex (Mail and Guardian 2006).

There is an emerging consensus within the research community that effective AIDS prevention programs must go beyond a focus on individuals to target the broader family, social, cultural, and environmental factors that influence behavioral decisions (Merson). ISISmapping grew out of a belief that maps are not only representations of reality, but tools for shaping reality. In our pilot project this summer, the geospatial technologies we provide will help researchers understand how social and physical environments are influencing HIV transmission among young girls in the community. Ultimately, this knowledge will be used to design AIDS intervention/prevention program specifically for Muhuru Bay. By facilitating the visualization of the social ecology of AIDS, we hope our mapping toolkit will empower the residents of Muhuru Bay to improve the health and economic progress of their community.