Progression of a large syphilis outbreak in rural North Carolina through space and time: Application of a Bayesian Maximum Entropy graphical user interface

Lani C Fox, William C Miller, Dionne Gesink, Irene Doherty, Kristen H Hampton, Peter A Leone, Delbert E Williams, Yasuyuki Akita, Molly Dunn and Marc L Serre

PLOS Global Public Health, 2023, vol. 3, issue 5, 1-13

Abstract: In 2001, the primary and secondary syphilis incidence rate in rural Columbus County, North Carolina was the highest in the nation. To understand the development of syphilis outbreaks in rural areas, we developed and used the Bayesian Maximum Entropy Graphical User Interface (BMEGUI) to map syphilis incidence rates from 1999–2004 in seven adjacent counties in North Carolina. Using BMEGUI, incidence rate maps were constructed for two aggregation scales (ZIP code and census tract) with two approaches (Poisson and simple kriging). The BME maps revealed the outbreak was initially localized in Robeson County and possibly connected to more urban endemic cases in adjacent Cumberland County. The outbreak spread to rural Columbus County in a leapfrog pattern with the subsequent development of a visible low incidence spatial corridor linking Roberson County with the rural areas of Columbus County. Though the data are from the early 2000s, they remain pertinent, as the combination of spatial data with the extensive sexual network analyses, particularly in rural areas gives thorough insights which have not been replicated in the past two decades. These observations support an important role for the connection of micropolitan areas with neighboring rural areas in the spread of syphilis. Public health interventions focusing on urban and micropolitan areas may effectively limit syphilis indirectly in nearby rural areas.

Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.plos.org/globalpublichealth/artic ... journal.pgph.0001714 (text/html)
https://journals.plos.org/globalpublichealth/artic ... 01714&type=printable (application/pdf)

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:plo:pgph00:0001714

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgph.0001714

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in PLOS Global Public Health from Public Library of Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by globalpubhealth ().