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Environmental and Other Factors Contributing to the Spatio-Temporal Variability of West Nile Virus in the United States

Mori, Hiroko, Mori
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1542288323140979

Abstract Details

2018, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Environmental Science.
The West Nile Virus (WNV) was introduced into the U.S. in the summer of 1999 and caused the outbreaks of West Nile encephalitis. The virus is responsible for more than 45,000 cases in the U.S., including 2,017 fatalities. This virus is passed back and forth between infected birds and mosquitoes, but humans can be infected by the bite of an infected data mosquito, and no vaccine is currently available for humans. The WNV is difficult to eradicate because of its complex transmission behaviors and the transmission dynamics can also be altered by a variety of factors. Key factors include host (birds) and vector (mosquitoes) abundances, the numbers of susceptible individuals of humans, weather patterns, land use, and land cover. Furthermore, small water bodies are the source for breeding mosquitoes and provide promising components for the mosquito management. The ultimate goal of this dissertation was to better understand how WNV occurs in the continental U.S. by linking hydrological frameworks and other environmental and social-economic factors for disease transmission. In the first study, statistical models were designed to identify the factors leading to human infection at a local area in North Dakota. This study addressed how variability in meteorological data and river management can affect the disease transmission through its association with mosquitoes. The developed models also allowed the prediction of the onset of virus infections, which can contribute to mosquito control or lead to a preemptive warning for protection. In addition, the findings and conceptual framework of my statistical approach could potentially be applied to prediction analysis of other mosquito-borne diseases. In the next study, a network analysis was applied to clarify how multiple factors affect WNV incidence rates of humans in the continental U.S. The study identified which factors are associated with the conditions that are susceptible to the virus, and when the surge of disease incidence can be observed inter-annually based on the network analysis. The findings suggest that the regions that have a high abundance of water bodies and land cover dominated with cropland, grassland, and shrubland had higher incidence rates of WNV. For the inter-annual similarities of regions, the regions with higher temperatures and dryer weathers than the average showed higher risks of WNV infection. These findings are useful tools to answer questions as to which factors are essential for transmission in each region and eventually can be applied for the prediction of WNV outbreaks. Overall, these two studies extended the efforts to incorporate multiple factors into the investigations of the WNV incidence in local and nation-wide scales. The studies also illustrated the potential importance of hydrological processes in the WNV transmission cycle by classifying types of water bodies observed in the U.S. Although public health disciplines are extensively explored these issues, my study suggests an interdisciplinary collaboration of the various study fields is essential to carry out successful approaches to disease control.
Motomu Ibaraki (Advisor)
Franklin Schwartz (Committee Member)
Jiyoung Lee (Committee Member)
C.K. Shum (Committee Member)
187 p.
Environmental Science
West Nile Virus; Spatio-Temporal Analysis; Statistical Model; Network Analysis

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Mori, Mori, H. (2018). Environmental and Other Factors Contributing to the Spatio-Temporal Variability of West Nile Virus in the United States [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1542288323140979

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Mori, Mori, Hiroko. Environmental and Other Factors Contributing to the Spatio-Temporal Variability of West Nile Virus in the United States. 2018. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1542288323140979.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Mori, Mori, Hiroko. "Environmental and Other Factors Contributing to the Spatio-Temporal Variability of West Nile Virus in the United States." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2018. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1542288323140979

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1542288323140979
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© 2018, some rights reserved.Creative Commons License Environmental and Other Factors Contributing to the Spatio-Temporal Variability of West Nile Virus in the United States by Hiroko Mori Mori is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at etd.ohiolink.edu.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.