Anthropology undergraduate Pallavi Oruganti was among the winners in Social and Behavioral Sciences at the Denman Undergraduate Research Forum on 30 March 2016.  Pallavi's poster was titled "Hunters' Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices towards Wildlife Diseases in Ohio".  Pallavi explains that hunters in Ohio stand at an interface of infectious disease transmission between humans, wildlife, and domestic animals. Her research focuses on hunters of wildlife in Ohio and their behavioral response and perceptions to wildlife disease in their hunting practices. 

Through ethnographic interviews and a survey distributed to Ohio hunters, she examined the Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices (KAP) hunters have in relation to wildlife and zoonotic disease and how that ultimately affects their risk of exposure. Pallavi uses a "One Health" approach to infectious disease by identifying the connections between human health, animal health, and environmental health. 

 

Pallavi says she chose this type of research because it draws from multiple fields including anthropology, public health, and veterinary medicine. It has been interesting to her to see how it is possible to look at infectious disease issues from this type of interdisciplinary perspective.