Diagnoses of the fungal disease coccidioidomycosis (Valley fever) are increasing and are anticipated to continue increasing under a changing climate. Yet, amidst disease underreporting, it remains unclear how common this disease—and the pathogen (Coccidioides) that causes it—is. Answers to questions such as, “How likely is an individual to encounter airborne Coccidioides spores?”, “What is the infectious dose needed to elicit an immune response?”, and, “What proportion of the population already has natural immunity?”, are critical to piecing together the puzzle. This talk will present two distinct studies aimed at generating evidence to start to answer these questions. The first study seeks to understand new methods for identifying airborne Coccidioides spores using portable air samplers affixed to uncrewed aircraft systems. The second study applies catalytic models to skin test data from a large cohort of California males entering state prison in order to understand population immunity to Coccidioides among a high-risk population.
