About You: Paul Krezanoski
Paul Krezanoski (MED’10) wants to eradicate malaria, and he’s working on ways to get people in Madagascar to use their best defense against the disease: mosquito nets.
“A lot of people don’t know where malaria comes from,” says Krezanoski, who first distributed insecticide-treated nets as a Peace Corps volunteer in Madagascar. “The real part of the project is education and explaining how malaria works. But explaining the idea of the microbe can be hard — some just don’t understand it.”
To help reduce the prevalence of the disease, Krezanoski founded a nonprofit company called Opportunity Solutions International, which encompasses two projects: Masomboly, which provides small-scale loans to women entrepreneurs in Ambalavao, Madagascar, and NetComp II, which uses financial incentives to promote the use of mosquito nets. The incentives include household goods like rice, coffee, and flour.
“Preliminary evidence shows that small incentives can boost the use of nets,” says Krezanoski, who is working with evidence he collected on a trip to Madagascar last summer. “While it doesn’t replace education, it can be a quick fix.”
Krezanoski hopes the idea can be used not only in Madagascar, but throughout malaria-infested areas. “The people are very poor, and you have to think of the priorities they have — how to make it more preferable to use the nets than not,” he says.
Kimberly Cornuelle can be reached at kcornuel@bu.edu.