Torres Strait Islands Health Surveys, 2016

This study was conducted in two Torres Straight Islands (TSI), Waiben (Thursday) and Murray (Mer) islands. Waiben island is a ~3.5 km2 island of the TSI archipelago located approximately 39 km north of Cape York Peninsula in the Torres Strait, Queensland, Australia. Besides local diet, residents of Waiben island have access to a versatile fast-food industry and ease of movement. Murray Island, on the other hand, is a ~4.3 km2 remote island of volcanic origin, the most easterly inhabited island of the TSI archipelago, just north of the Great Barrier Reef. Locals of Murray Island have a high intake of local fish (Sardine) and garden produce. Samples used in this study were collected as part of Torres Strait Islands Health Surveys in the Zenadth-Kes Health Partnership of 2016. A cohort of 100 volunteers, 50 from each island provided stool samples for metagenomic sequencing and that guided the inclusion criteria for this study.