Spatial Associations Between Land Use and Infectious Disease: Zika Virus in Colombia

Joshua S. Weinstein, Timothy F. Leslie and Michael E. von Fricken
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Joshua S. Weinstein: Geography and Geoinformation Science Department, George Mason University, 4400 University Drive, Fairfax, VA 22030, USA
Timothy F. Leslie: Geography and Geoinformation Science Department, George Mason University, 4400 University Drive, Fairfax, VA 22030, USA
Michael E. von Fricken: Department of Global and Community Health, George Mason University, 4400 University Drive, Fairfax, VA 22030, USA

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 4, 1-11

Abstract: Land use boundaries represent human–physical interfaces where risk of vector-borne disease transmission is elevated. Land development practices, coupled with rural and urban land fragmentation, increases the likelihood that immunologically naïve humans will encounter infectious vectors at land use interfaces. This research consolidated land use classes from the GLC-SHARE dataset; calculated landscape metrics in linear (edge) density, proportion abundance, and patch density; and derived the incidence rate ratios of the Zika virus occurrence in Colombia, South America during 2016. Negative binomial regression was used to evaluate vector-borne disease occurrence counts in relation to Population Density, Average Elevation, Per Capita Gross Domestic Product, and each of three landscape metrics. Each kilometer of border length per square kilometer of area increase in the linear density of the Cropland and Grassland classes is associated with an increase in Zika virus risk. These spatial associations inform a risk reduction approach to rural and urban morphology and land development that emphasizes simple and compact land use geometry that decreases habitat availability for mosquito vectors of Zika virus.

Keywords: zika virus; ZIKV; Colombia; infectious disease; vector-borne; land use; landscape metrics; linear density; proportion abundance; patch density (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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