Spatio-temporal and stochastic modelling of severe acute respiratory syndrome

Lai, Poh-Chin and Kwong, Kim-Hung and Wong, Ho-Ting (2013) Spatio-temporal and stochastic modelling of severe acute respiratory syndrome. Geospatial Health , 8 (1). pp. 183-192. ISSN 1970-7096

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Abstract

This study describes the development of a spatio-temporal disease model based on the episodes of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) that took place in Hong Kong in 2003. In contrast to conventional, deterministic modelling approaches, the model described here is predominantly spatial. It incorporates stochastic processing of environmental and social variables that interact in space and time to affect the patterns of disease transmission in a community. The model was validated through a comparative assessment between actual and modelled distribution of diseased locations. Our study shows that the inclusion of location-specific characteristics satisfactorily replicates the spatial dynamics of an infectious disease. The Pearson’s correlation coefficients for five trials based on 3-day aggregation of disease counts for 1-3, 4-6 and 7-9 day forecasts were 0.57- 0.95, 0.54-0.86 and 0.57-0.82, respectively, while the correlation based on 5-day aggregation for the 1-5 day forecast was 0.55- 0.94 and 0.58-0.81 for the 6-10 day forecast. The significant and strong relationship between actual results and forecast is encouraging for the potential development of an early warning system for detecting this type of disease outbreaks.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Infectious disease epidemiology, spatial modelling, estimating disease spread, SARS, geographical information system, early warning system, Hong Kong
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 14:00
Last Modified:	30 Jul 2014 14:01
URI:	http://eprints.bice.rm.cnr.it/id/eprint/9420

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