Epidemiological and time series analysis on the incidence and death of AIDS and HIV in China

BACKGROUND: To investigate the regional and age-specific distribution of AIDS/HIV in China from 2004 to 2017 and to conduct time series analysis of the epidemiological trends. METHOD: Using official surveillance data from publicly accessible database of the national infectious disease reporting system, we described long-term patterns of incidence and death in AIDS/HIV, analyzed age group and regional epidemic characteristics, and established Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) models for time series analysis. RESULT: The incidence and death of AIDS/HIV have increased rapidly from 2004 to 2017, with significant difference regarding age groups and provincial regions (a few provinces appear as hot spots). With goodness-of-fit criteria and using data from 2004 to 2015, ARIMA (0,1,3) × (2,0,0), ARIMA (3,1,0) × (1,0,1), and ARIMA (0,1,2) × (2,0,0) were chosen as the optimal model for the incidence of AIDS, HIV, and combined; ARIMA (0,1,3) × (1,0,0) was chosen as the optimal model for the death of AIDS, HIV, and combined. ARIMA models robustly predicted the incidence and death of AIDS/HIV in 2016 and 2017. CONCLUSION: A focused intervention strategy targeting specific regions and age groups is essential for the prevention and control of AIDS/HIV. ARIMA models function as data-driven and evidence-based methods to forecast the trends of infectious diseases and formulate public health policies. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12889-020-09977-8.