Forecasting high-priority infectious disease surveillance regions: a socioeconomic model.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Few researchers have assessed the relationships between socioeconomic inequality and infectious disease outbreaks at the population level globally. We use a socioeconomic model to forecast national annual rates of infectious disease outbreaks.

Methods

We constructed a multivariate mixed-effects Poisson model of the number of times a given country was the origin of an outbreak in a given year. The dataset included 389 outbreaks of international concern reported in the World Health Organization's Disease Outbreak News from 1996 to 2008. The initial full model included 9 socioeconomic variables related to education, poverty, population health, urbanization, health infrastructure, gender equality, communication, transportation, and democracy, and 1 composite index. Po

SUBMITTER: Chan EH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3552528 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature