Spatial Regression-Based Environmental Analysis in Infectious Disease Informatics

摘要

Studying relationships between environmental factors and infectious diseases is an important topic in public health research. The existing studies have been focused on temporal correlations among environmental risks and infectious disease outbreaks. In this paper, we advocate the importance of spatial data analysis in infectious disease-related environmental analysis. Using data from the Beijing CDC, we have conducted spatial regression analysis to study correlation between Measles occurrences and the following environmental factors: population density and proximities to railways, roads, and water systems. We report some preliminary findings concerning significant spatial autocorrelation identified from our analysis.