Spatial analysis of risk factors for transmission of the Barmah Forest virus in Queensland, Australia

Naish, Suchithra and Mengersen, Kerrie and Tong, Shi-Lu (2013) Spatial analysis of risk factors for transmission of the Barmah Forest virus in Queensland, Australia. Geospatial Health, 8 (1). pp. 289-299. ISSN 1970-7096

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Abstract

Barmah Forest virus (BFV) disease is the second most common mosquito-borne disease in Australia but few data are available on the risk factors. We assessed the impact of spatial climatic, socioeconomic and ecological factors on the transmission of BFV disease in Queensland, Australia, using spatial regression. All our analyses indicate that spatial lag models provide a superior fit to the data compared to spatial error and ordinary least square models. The residuals of the spatial lag models were found to be uncorrelated, indicating that the models adequately account for spatial and temporal autocorrelation. Our results revealed that minimum temperature, distance from coast and low tide were negatively and rainfall was positively associated with BFV disease in coastal areas, whereas minimum temperature and high tide were negatively and rainfall was positively associated with BFV disease (all P-value <0.05). The study demonstrates that BFV disease is more densely distributed in coastal areas and is influenced by climatic and ecological factors. The spatial analytical approach used in this study may have ramifications in the planning and implementation of BFV disease prevention and control programmes.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Barmah Forest virus, geographical information system, spatial regression, risk factors, Australia
Subjects:	600 Tecnologia - Scienze applicate > 610 Medicina e salute (Classificare qui la tecnologia dei servizi medici) > 614 Medicina legale; incidenza delle malattie; Medicina preventiva pubblica > 614.4 Incidenza delle malattie e misure pubblica per prevenirle (classificare qui l'Epidemiologia, l'Epidemiologia clinica)
Depositing User:	Chiara D'Arpa
Date Deposited:	30 Jul 2014 10:00
Last Modified:	30 Jul 2014 10:00
URI:	http://eprints.bice.rm.cnr.it/id/eprint/9460

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