A Novel Sampling Method to Measure Socioeconomic Drivers of Aedes albopictus Distribution in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina

Ari Whiteman, Eric Delmelle, Tyler Rapp, Shi Chen, Gang Chen and Michael Dulin
Additional contact information
Ari Whiteman: Department of Geography and Earth Sciences and Center for Applied Geographic Information Science, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, 2901 University City Blvd, Charlotte, NC 28223, USA
Eric Delmelle: Department of Geography and Earth Sciences and Center for Applied Geographic Information Science, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, 2901 University City Blvd, Charlotte, NC 28223, USA
Tyler Rapp: Academy for Population Health Innovation, 9201 University City Blvd, Charlotte, NC, 28223, USA
Shi Chen: Department of Public Health Sciences, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, 2901 University City Blvd, Charlotte, NC 28223, USA
Gang Chen: Department of Geography and Earth Sciences and Center for Applied Geographic Information Science, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, 2901 University City Blvd, Charlotte, NC 28223, USA
Michael Dulin: Academy for Population Health Innovation, 9201 University City Blvd, Charlotte, NC, 28223, USA

IJERPH, 2018, vol. 15, issue 10, 1-19

Abstract: Climate change, urbanization, and globalization have facilitated the spread of Aedes mosquitoes into regions that were previously unsuitable, causing an increased threat of arbovirus transmission on a global scale. While numerous studies have addressed the urban ecology of Ae. albopictus , few have accounted for socioeconomic factors that affect their range in urban regions. Here we introduce an original sampling design for Ae. albopictus , that uses a spatial optimization process to identify urban collection sites based on both geographic parameters as well as the gradient of socioeconomic variables present in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, encompassing the city of Charlotte, a rapidly growing urban environment. We collected 3645 specimens of Ae. albopictus (87% of total samples) across 12 weeks at the 90 optimized site locations and modelled the relationships between the abundance of gravid Ae. albopictus and a variety of neighborhood socioeconomic attributes as well as land cover characteristics. Our results demonstrate that the abundance of gravid Ae. albopictus is inversely related to the socioeconomic status of the neighborhood and directly related to both landscape heterogeneity as well as proportions of particular resident races/ethnicities. We present our results alongside a description of our novel sampling scheme and its usefulness as an approach to urban vector epidemiology. Additionally, we supply recommendations for future investigations into the socioeconomic determinants of vector-borne disease risk.

Keywords: vector-borne disease; health disparities; optimization; social determinants of health (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/15/10/2179/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/15/10/2179/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:15:y:2018:i:10:p:2179-:d:173873

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().