Forecasting United States heartworm Dirofilaria immitis prevalence in dogs.
Parasit Vectors
; 9(1): 540, 2016 10 10.
Article
en En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-27724981
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:
This paper forecasts next year's canine heartworm prevalence in the United States from 16 climate, geographic and societal factors. The forecast's construction and an assessment of its performance are described.METHODS:
The forecast is based on a spatial-temporal conditional autoregressive model fitted to over 31 million antigen heartworm tests conducted in the 48 contiguous United States during 2011-2015. The forecast uses county-level data on 16 predictive factors, including temperature, precipitation, median household income, local forest and surface water coverage, and presence/absence of eight mosquito species. Non-static factors are extrapolated into the forthcoming year with various statistical methods. The fitted model and factor extrapolations are used to estimate next year's regional prevalence.RESULTS:
The correlation between the observed and model-estimated county-by-county heartworm prevalence for the 5-year period 2011-2015 is 0.727, demonstrating reasonable model accuracy. The correlation between 2015 observed and forecasted county-by-county heartworm prevalence is 0.940, demonstrating significant skill and showing that heartworm prevalence can be forecasted reasonably accurately.CONCLUSIONS:
The forecast presented herein can a priori alert veterinarians to areas expected to see higher than normal heartworm activity. The proposed methods may prove useful for forecasting other diseases.Palabras clave
Texto completo:
1
Colección:
01-internacional
Base de datos:
MEDLINE
Asunto principal:
Dirofilaria immitis
/
Dirofilariasis
/
Enfermedades de los Perros
Tipo de estudio:
Prevalence_studies
/
Prognostic_studies
/
Risk_factors_studies
Límite:
Animals
País/Región como asunto:
America do norte
Idioma:
En
Revista:
Parasit Vectors
Año:
2016
Tipo del documento:
Article
País de afiliación:
Estados Unidos