Abstract:
Sleeping sickness continues to be a significant public health burden in southeastern Uganda.
Continued spread of the disease into new areas of Uganda highlights our inability to understand and predict
the distribution of infection. Multiple factors influence the distribution of sleeping sickness, including climate,
land cover, cattle movements, prevention and control activities, and social conflict. We draw on a systems
approach to conceptualize and characterize the multiple interacting forces and processes that influence the
spatial and temporal dynamics of sleeping sickness in Uganda. This synthesis reveals a complex system of
interactions among human and biophysical systems, feedback, and scale dependence. We identify some
common analytical modeling approaches relative to our system characterization and identify opportunities for
sleeping sickness research and improved understanding of disease dynamics in Uganda