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Environmental and social determinants of human risk during a West Nile virus outbreak in the greater Chicago area, 2002

BACKGROUND: The outbreak of West Nile Virus (WNV) in and around Chicago in 2002 included over 680 cases of human illness caused by the virus within this region. The notable clustering of the cases in two well-defined areas suggests the existence of specific environmental and social factors that incr...

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Autores principales: Ruiz, Marilyn O, Tedesco, Carmen, McTighe, Thomas J, Austin, Connie, Kitron, Uriel
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2004
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC420251/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15099399
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1476-072X-3-8
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author Ruiz, Marilyn O
Tedesco, Carmen
McTighe, Thomas J
Austin, Connie
Kitron, Uriel
author_facet Ruiz, Marilyn O
Tedesco, Carmen
McTighe, Thomas J
Austin, Connie
Kitron, Uriel
author_sort Ruiz, Marilyn O
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: The outbreak of West Nile Virus (WNV) in and around Chicago in 2002 included over 680 cases of human illness caused by the virus within this region. The notable clustering of the cases in two well-defined areas suggests the existence of specific environmental and social factors that increase the risk for WNV infection and/or illness in these locations. This investigation sought to create an empirically based model to account for these factors and to assess their importance in explaining the possible processes that may have led to this pattern. RESULTS: The cluster pattern of high incidence of cases was statistically significant. The risk factors that were found to be important included the presence of vegetation, age, income, and race of the human population, distance to a WNV positive dead bird specimen, age of housing, mosquito abatement and geological factors. The effect of different mosquito abatement efforts was particularly notable. About 53 percent of the variation of the location of WNV clusters was explained by these factors. CONCLUSION: The models developed indicate that differential mosquito abatement efforts are especially important risk factors, even when controlling for key environmental factors. Human population characteristics play a role in risk that is measurable in this ecological study but would require further research to associate causality with risk. The analysis of spatial clusters of case incidence indicates that this approach provides more insight into the focal nature of differential risk factors that tend to be associated with WNV than an analysis of all individual cases.
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spelling pubmed-4202512004-06-06 Environmental and social determinants of human risk during a West Nile virus outbreak in the greater Chicago area, 2002 Ruiz, Marilyn O Tedesco, Carmen McTighe, Thomas J Austin, Connie Kitron, Uriel Int J Health Geogr Research BACKGROUND: The outbreak of West Nile Virus (WNV) in and around Chicago in 2002 included over 680 cases of human illness caused by the virus within this region. The notable clustering of the cases in two well-defined areas suggests the existence of specific environmental and social factors that increase the risk for WNV infection and/or illness in these locations. This investigation sought to create an empirically based model to account for these factors and to assess their importance in explaining the possible processes that may have led to this pattern. RESULTS: The cluster pattern of high incidence of cases was statistically significant. The risk factors that were found to be important included the presence of vegetation, age, income, and race of the human population, distance to a WNV positive dead bird specimen, age of housing, mosquito abatement and geological factors. The effect of different mosquito abatement efforts was particularly notable. About 53 percent of the variation of the location of WNV clusters was explained by these factors. CONCLUSION: The models developed indicate that differential mosquito abatement efforts are especially important risk factors, even when controlling for key environmental factors. Human population characteristics play a role in risk that is measurable in this ecological study but would require further research to associate causality with risk. The analysis of spatial clusters of case incidence indicates that this approach provides more insight into the focal nature of differential risk factors that tend to be associated with WNV than an analysis of all individual cases. BioMed Central 2004-04-20 /pmc/articles/PMC420251/ /pubmed/15099399 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1476-072X-3-8 Text en Copyright © 2004 Ruiz et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article: verbatim copying and redistribution of this article are permitted in all media for any purpose, provided this notice is preserved along with the article's original URL.
spellingShingle Research
Ruiz, Marilyn O
Tedesco, Carmen
McTighe, Thomas J
Austin, Connie
Kitron, Uriel
Environmental and social determinants of human risk during a West Nile virus outbreak in the greater Chicago area, 2002
title Environmental and social determinants of human risk during a West Nile virus outbreak in the greater Chicago area, 2002
title_full Environmental and social determinants of human risk during a West Nile virus outbreak in the greater Chicago area, 2002
title_fullStr Environmental and social determinants of human risk during a West Nile virus outbreak in the greater Chicago area, 2002
title_full_unstemmed Environmental and social determinants of human risk during a West Nile virus outbreak in the greater Chicago area, 2002
title_short Environmental and social determinants of human risk during a West Nile virus outbreak in the greater Chicago area, 2002
title_sort environmental and social determinants of human risk during a west nile virus outbreak in the greater chicago area, 2002
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC420251/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15099399
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1476-072X-3-8
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