Malaria is one of the deadliest and most complicated diseases in human history. 300-600 million people contract malaria each year and about a million die; over 90% of them being young children in Sub-Saharan Africa. There have been remarkable advancements in preventative and diagnostic technologies for the disease but there are still disparities in the access and usage of bed nets and other preventative tools. For my University Scholars project, I will be exploring risk perception of malaria in Tanzania and how perceptions of the disease influence prevention and treatment practices. My aim for this project is to contextualize these disparities and trends by exploring how an individual’s risk perception encourages or discourages them from using bed nets and other prevention efforts that public health officials suggest. With the findings from literature reviews and my own personal ethnographic research, I will be able to better characterize malaria as a disease strongly influenced by sociocultural/economic factors and how these factors influence behavior and thus the efficacy of current malaria prevention strategies.