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García-García D, Fernández-Martínez B, Bartumeus F, Gómez-Barroso D. Modeling the Regional Distribution of International Travelers in Spain to Estimate Imported Cases of Dengue and Malaria: Statistical Inference and Validation Study. JMIR Public Health Surveill 2024; 10:e51191. [PMID: 38801767 PMCID: PMC11165286 DOI: 10.2196/51191] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/24/2023] [Revised: 10/18/2023] [Accepted: 03/05/2024] [Indexed: 05/29/2024] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Understanding the patterns of disease importation through international travel is paramount for effective public health interventions and global disease surveillance. While global airline network data have been used to assist in outbreak prevention and effective preparedness, accurately estimating how these imported cases disseminate locally in receiving countries remains a challenge. OBJECTIVE This study aimed to describe and understand the regional distribution of imported cases of dengue and malaria upon arrival in Spain via air travel. METHODS We have proposed a method to describe the regional distribution of imported cases of dengue and malaria based on the computation of the "travelers' index" from readily available socioeconomic data. We combined indicators representing the main drivers for international travel, including tourism, economy, and visits to friends and relatives, to measure the relative appeal of each region in the importing country for travelers. We validated the resulting estimates by comparing them with the reported cases of malaria and dengue in Spain from 2015 to 2019. We also assessed which motivation provided more accurate estimates for imported cases of both diseases. RESULTS The estimates provided by the best fitted model showed high correlation with notified cases of malaria (0.94) and dengue (0.87), with economic motivation being the most relevant for imported cases of malaria and visits to friends and relatives being the most relevant for imported cases of dengue. CONCLUSIONS Factual descriptions of the local movement of international travelers may substantially enhance the design of cost-effective prevention policies and control strategies, and essentially contribute to decision-support systems. Our approach contributes in this direction by providing a reliable estimate of the number of imported cases of nonendemic diseases, which could be generalized to other applications. Realistic risk assessments will be obtained by combining this regional predictor with the observed local distribution of vectors.
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Affiliation(s)
- David García-García
- Department of Communicable Diseases, National Centre of Epidemiology, Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Madrid, Spain
- Epidemiology and Public Health Biomedical Network Research Consortium (CIBERESP), Madrid, Spain
| | - Beatriz Fernández-Martínez
- Department of Communicable Diseases, National Centre of Epidemiology, Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Madrid, Spain
- Epidemiology and Public Health Biomedical Network Research Consortium (CIBERESP), Madrid, Spain
| | - Frederic Bartumeus
- Group of Theoretical and Computational Ecology, Centre for Advanced Studies of Blanes, Spanish Research Council, Blanes, Spain
- Ecological and Forestry Applications Research Centre, Barcelona, Spain
- Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies, Barcelona, Spain
| | - Diana Gómez-Barroso
- Department of Communicable Diseases, National Centre of Epidemiology, Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Madrid, Spain
- Epidemiology and Public Health Biomedical Network Research Consortium (CIBERESP), Madrid, Spain
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Lim AY, Jafari Y, Caldwell JM, Clapham HE, Gaythorpe KAM, Hussain-Alkhateeb L, Johansson MA, Kraemer MUG, Maude RJ, McCormack CP, Messina JP, Mordecai EA, Rabe IB, Reiner RC, Ryan SJ, Salje H, Semenza JC, Rojas DP, Brady OJ. A systematic review of the data, methods and environmental covariates used to map Aedes-borne arbovirus transmission risk. BMC Infect Dis 2023; 23:708. [PMID: 37864153 PMCID: PMC10588093 DOI: 10.1186/s12879-023-08717-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/14/2023] [Accepted: 10/16/2023] [Indexed: 10/22/2023] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Aedes (Stegomyia)-borne diseases are an expanding global threat, but gaps in surveillance make comprehensive and comparable risk assessments challenging. Geostatistical models combine data from multiple locations and use links with environmental and socioeconomic factors to make predictive risk maps. Here we systematically review past approaches to map risk for different Aedes-borne arboviruses from local to global scales, identifying differences and similarities in the data types, covariates, and modelling approaches used. METHODS We searched on-line databases for predictive risk mapping studies for dengue, Zika, chikungunya, and yellow fever with no geographical or date restrictions. We included studies that needed to parameterise or fit their model to real-world epidemiological data and make predictions to new spatial locations of some measure of population-level risk of viral transmission (e.g. incidence, occurrence, suitability, etc.). RESULTS We found a growing number of arbovirus risk mapping studies across all endemic regions and arboviral diseases, with a total of 176 papers published 2002-2022 with the largest increases shortly following major epidemics. Three dominant use cases emerged: (i) global maps to identify limits of transmission, estimate burden and assess impacts of future global change, (ii) regional models used to predict the spread of major epidemics between countries and (iii) national and sub-national models that use local datasets to better understand transmission dynamics to improve outbreak detection and response. Temperature and rainfall were the most popular choice of covariates (included in 50% and 40% of studies respectively) but variables such as human mobility are increasingly being included. Surprisingly, few studies (22%, 31/144) robustly tested combinations of covariates from different domains (e.g. climatic, sociodemographic, ecological, etc.) and only 49% of studies assessed predictive performance via out-of-sample validation procedures. CONCLUSIONS Here we show that approaches to map risk for different arboviruses have diversified in response to changing use cases, epidemiology and data availability. We identify key differences in mapping approaches between different arboviral diseases, discuss future research needs and outline specific recommendations for future arbovirus mapping.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ah-Young Lim
- Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Dynamics, Faculty of Epidemiology and Population Health, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, London, UK.
- Centre for Mathematical Modelling of Infectious Diseases, Faculty of Epidemiology and Population Health, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, London, UK.
| | - Yalda Jafari
- Mahidol Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit, Faculty of Tropical Medicine, Mahidol University, Bangkok, Thailand
- Centre for Tropical Medicine and Global Health, Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
| | - Jamie M Caldwell
- High Meadows Environmental Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
| | - Hannah E Clapham
- Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, National University of Singapore and National University Health System, Singapore, Singapore
| | - Katy A M Gaythorpe
- MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis, School of Public Health, Imperial College London, London, UK
| | - Laith Hussain-Alkhateeb
- School of Public Health and Community Medicine, Sahlgrenska Academy, Institute of Medicine, Global Health, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden
- Population Health Research Section, King Abdullah International Medical Research Center, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
| | - Michael A Johansson
- Dengue Branch, Division of Vector-Borne Diseases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, San Juan, Puerto Rico, USA
| | | | - Richard J Maude
- Mahidol Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit, Faculty of Tropical Medicine, Mahidol University, Bangkok, Thailand
- Centre for Tropical Medicine and Global Health, Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
| | - Clare P McCormack
- MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis, School of Public Health, Imperial College London, London, UK
| | - Jane P Messina
- School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
- Oxford School of Global and Area Studies, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
| | - Erin A Mordecai
- Department of Biology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
| | - Ingrid B Rabe
- Department of Epidemic and Pandemic Preparedness and Prevention, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland
| | - Robert C Reiner
- Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
- Department of Health Metrics Sciences, School of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
| | - Sadie J Ryan
- Department of Geography and Emerging Pathogens Institute, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA
| | - Henrik Salje
- Department of Genetics, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
| | - Jan C Semenza
- Department of Public Health and Clinical Medicine, Section of Sustainable Health, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden
| | - Diana P Rojas
- Department of Epidemic and Pandemic Preparedness and Prevention, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland
| | - Oliver J Brady
- Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Dynamics, Faculty of Epidemiology and Population Health, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, London, UK
- Centre for Mathematical Modelling of Infectious Diseases, Faculty of Epidemiology and Population Health, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, London, UK
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Predicting infectious disease for biopreparedness and response: A systematic review of machine learning and deep learning approaches. One Health 2022; 15:100439. [PMID: 36277100 PMCID: PMC9582566 DOI: 10.1016/j.onehlt.2022.100439] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/08/2022] [Revised: 09/20/2022] [Accepted: 09/30/2022] [Indexed: 11/21/2022] Open
Abstract
The complex, unpredictable nature of pathogen occurrence has required substantial efforts to accurately predict infectious diseases (IDs). With rising popularity of Machine Learning (ML) and Deep Learning (DL) techniques combined with their unique ability to uncover connections between large amounts of diverse data, we conducted a PRISMA systematic review to investigate advances in ID prediction for human and animal diseases using ML and DL. This review included the type of IDs modeled, ML and DL techniques utilized, geographical distribution, prediction tasks performed, input features utilized, spatial and temporal scales, error metrics used, computational efficiency, uncertainty quantification, and missing data handling methods. Among 237 relevant articles published between January 2001 and May 2021, highly contagious diseases in humans were most often represented, including COVID-19 (37.1%), influenza/influenza-like illnesses (9.3%), dengue (8.9%), and malaria (5.1%). Out of 37 diseases identified, 51.4% were zoonotic, 37.8% were human-only, and 8.1% were animal-only, with only 1.6% economically significant, non-zoonotic livestock diseases. Despite the number of zoonoses, 86.5% of articles modeled humans whereas only a few articles (5.1%) contained more than one host species. Eastern Asia (32.5%), North America (17.7%), and Southern Asia (13.1%) were the most represented locations. Frequent approaches included tree-based ML (38.4%) and feed-forward neural networks (26.6%). Articles predicted temporal incidence (66.7%), disease risk (38.0%), and/or spatial movement (31.2%). Less than 10% of studies addressed uncertainty quantification, computational efficiency, and missing data, which are essential to operational use and deployment. This study highlights trends and gaps in ML and DL for ID prediction, providing guidelines for future works to better support biopreparedness and response. To fully utilize ML and DL for improved ID forecasting, models should include the full disease ecology in a One-Health context, important food and agricultural diseases, underrepresented hotspots, and important metrics required for operational deployment. An exponential increase in use of ML and DL models over the past decade. ML/DL can model highly complex systems with a wide variety of input features. ML/DL disease models should include the full disease ecology in a One-Health context. Important food & agricultural diseases and key disease hotspots are underrepresented. Studies must focus on operational deployment needs to better support biopreparedness.
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Deep learning models for forecasting dengue fever based on climate data in Vietnam. PLoS Negl Trop Dis 2022; 16:e0010509. [PMID: 35696432 PMCID: PMC9232166 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pntd.0010509] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/20/2021] [Revised: 06/24/2022] [Accepted: 05/17/2022] [Indexed: 11/30/2022] Open
Abstract
Background Dengue fever (DF) represents a significant health burden in Vietnam, which is forecast to worsen under climate change. The development of an early-warning system for DF has been selected as a prioritised health adaptation measure to climate change in Vietnam. Objective This study aimed to develop an accurate DF prediction model in Vietnam using a wide range of meteorological factors as inputs to inform public health responses for outbreak prevention in the context of future climate change. Methods Convolutional neural network (CNN), Transformer, long short-term memory (LSTM), and attention-enhanced LSTM (LSTM-ATT) models were compared with traditional machine learning models on weather-based DF forecasting. Models were developed using lagged DF incidence and meteorological variables (measures of temperature, humidity, rainfall, evaporation, and sunshine hours) as inputs for 20 provinces throughout Vietnam. Data from 1997–2013 were used to train models, which were then evaluated using data from 2014–2016 by Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) and Mean Absolute Error (MAE). Results and discussion LSTM-ATT displayed the highest performance, scoring average places of 1.60 for RMSE-based ranking and 1.95 for MAE-based ranking. Notably, it was able to forecast DF incidence better than LSTM in 13 or 14 out of 20 provinces for MAE or RMSE, respectively. Moreover, LSTM-ATT was able to accurately predict DF incidence and outbreak months up to 3 months ahead, though performance dropped slightly compared to short-term forecasts. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time deep learning methods have been employed for the prediction of both long- and short-term DF incidence and outbreaks in Vietnam using unique, rich meteorological features. Conclusion This study demonstrates the usefulness of deep learning models for meteorological factor-based DF forecasting. LSTM-ATT should be further explored for mitigation strategies against DF and other climate-sensitive diseases in the coming years. Dengue fever (DF) represents a significant health burden worldwide and in Vietnam, which is forecast to worsen under climate change. The development of an early-warning system for DF has been selected as a prioritised health adaptation measure to climate change in Vietnam. This study aimed to use deep learning models to develop a prediction model of DF rates in Vietnam using a wide range of climate factors as input variables to inform public health responses for outbreak prevention in the context of future climate change. The study found that LSTM-ATT outperformed competing models, scoring average places of 1.60 for RMSE-based ranking and 1.90 for MAE-based ranking. Notably, it was able to forecast DF incidence better than LSTM in 12 or 14 out of 20 provinces for MAE or RMSE, respectively. Moreover, LSTM-ATT was able to accurately predict DF incidence and outbreaks up to 3 months ahead, though performance dropped slightly compared to short-term forecasts. This is the first time deep learning methods have been employed for the prediction of both long- and short-term DF incidence and outbreaks in Vietnam using unique, rich climate features, and it demonstrates the usefulness of deep learning models for climate-based DF forecasting.
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