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Full-Text Articles in Epidemiology
Space-Time Modelling Of Emerging Infectious Diseases: Assessing Leptospirosis Risk In Sri Lanka, Cameron C F Plouffe
Space-Time Modelling Of Emerging Infectious Diseases: Assessing Leptospirosis Risk In Sri Lanka, Cameron C F Plouffe
Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)
In this research, models were developed to analyze leptospirosis incidence in Sri Lanka and its relation to rainfall. Before any leptospirosis risk models were developed, rainfall data were evaluated from an agro-ecological monitoring network for producing maps of total monthly rainfall in Sri Lanka. Four spatial interpolation techniques were compared: inverse distance weighting, thin-plate splines, ordinary kriging, and Bayesian kriging. Error metrics were used to validate interpolations against independent data. Satellite data were used to assess the spatial pattern of rainfall. Results indicated that Bayesian kriging and splines performed best in low and high rainfall, respectively. Rainfall maps generated from …
Japanese Encephalitis: Assessing Disease Risk Due To Landscape Factors At Multiple Scales, Julia E. Metelka
Japanese Encephalitis: Assessing Disease Risk Due To Landscape Factors At Multiple Scales, Julia E. Metelka
Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)
Japanese Encephalitis is a mosquito-borne disease and is the leading cause of viral encephalitis in Asia. In many Asian countries, the geographical distribution of JE is dependent on a variety of human-environment interactions that can be conceptualized as a complex social-ecological system. The JE transmission cycle is influenced by a few primary human-landscape factors; the abundance and the spatial configuration of rice paddy fields (which provide habitat for the vector), the distribution of pig farms (which position the virus' amplifying host), and the location of a susceptible human population. Our models integrate population dynamics, landscape characteristics, and weather variables that …