Dataset Information

Public perceptions and behaviours related to the risk of infection with Aedes mosquito-borne diseases: a cross-sectional study in Southeastern France.

ABSTRACT:

Objectives

To explore public perceptions and behaviours related to the risk of flavivirus and alphavirus infection in Southeastern regions of France following the recent colonisation of the Asian tiger mosquito, Aedes albopictus, and the identification of four autochthonous cases of dengue and chikungunya fever in these regions.

Design

Cross-sectional telephone survey using a proportional random digit dialling selection method.

Setting

Interviews were conducted from 28 November 2011 to 29 January 2012 using a computer-assisted telephone interviewing system.

Participants

1506 French speaking adults aged 18 years or older residing in French Mediterranean regions.

Results

Protective health behaviours were found to be performed less frequently among men (AOR=0.65, 95% CI 0.52% to 0.80%), residents with lower educational status (AOR=0.61, 95% CI 0.43% to 0.85% for respondents with primary school education; AOR=0.69, 95% CI 0.53% to 0.90% for those with some secondary school education), and those living in regions where the Aedes mosquito is objectively rare (AOR=0.60, 95% CI 0.36% to 0.98% for Aude; AOR=0.63, 95% CI 0.44% to 0.89% for Herault; AOR=0.56, 95% CI 0.34% to 0.93% for Eastern Pyrenees). Empirical results also suggest that behavioural responses to infection risk are greater shaped by the perceived exposure to Aedes, notably the perceived frequency of mosquito bites (AOR=2.07, 95% CI 1.84% to 2.32%) and visual identification of Aedes mosquitoes in one's immediate environment (AOR=1.98, 95% CI 1.45% to 2.71%) rather than by other common predictors of protective behaviours.

Conclusions

These findings may help with the development of innovative instruments designed to make more visible and personal the threat of flavivirus and alphavirus infections induced by the presence of A albopictus in order to promote significant behavioural changes among populations at risk.

SUBMITTER: Raude J

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3533069 | biostudies-literature | 2012

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

Public perceptions and behaviours related to the risk of infection with Aedes mosquito-borne diseases: a cross-sectional study in Southeastern France.

Raude Jocelyn J Chinfatt Kimberly K Huang Peiching P Betansedi Charles Olivier CO Katumba Kenneth K Vernazza Nicole N Bley Daniel D

BMJ open 20121128 6

<h4>Objectives</h4>To explore public perceptions and behaviours related to the risk of flavivirus and alphavirus infection in Southeastern regions of France following the recent colonisation of the Asian tiger mosquito, Aedes albopictus, and the identification of four autochthonous cases of dengue and chikungunya fever in these regions.<h4>Design</h4>Cross-sectional telephone survey using a proportional random digit dialling selection method.<h4>Setting</h4>Interviews were conducted from 28 Nove ...[more]

PMID: 23194955

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Project description:BackgroundChikungunya virus (CHIKV) originated in a sylvatic cycle of transmission between non-human animal hosts and vector mosquitoes in the forests of Africa. Subsequently the virus jumped out of this ancestral cycle into a human-endemic transmission cycle vectored by anthropophilic mosquitoes. Sylvatic CHIKV cycles persist in Africa and continue to spill over into humans, creating the potential for new CHIKV strains to enter human-endemic transmission. To mitigate such spillover, it is first necessary to delineate the distributions of the sylvatic mosquito vectors of CHIKV, to identify the environmental factors that shape these distributions, and to determine the association of mosquito presence with key drivers of virus spillover, including mosquito and CHIKV abundance. We therefore modeled the distribution of seven CHIKV mosquito vectors over two sequential rainy seasons in Kédougou, Senegal using Maxent.MethodsMosquito data were collected in fifty sites distributed in five land cover classes across the study area. Environmental data representing land cover, topographic, and climatic factors were included in the models. Models were compared and evaluated using area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC) statistics. The correlation of model outputs with abundance of individual mosquito species as well as CHIKV-positive mosquito pools was tested.ResultsFourteen models were produced and evaluated; the environmental variables most strongly associated with mosquito distributions were distance to large patches of forest, landscape patch size, rainfall, and the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI). Seven models were positively correlated with mosquito abundance and one (Aedes taylori) was consistently, positively correlated with CHIKV-positive mosquito pools. Eight models predicted high relative occurrence rates of mosquitoes near the villages of Tenkoto and Ngary, the areas with the highest frequency of CHIKV-positive mosquito pools.ConclusionsOf the environmental factors considered here, landscape fragmentation and configuration had the strongest influence on mosquito distributions. Of the mosquito species modeled, the distribution of Ae. taylori correlated most strongly with abundance of CHIKV, suggesting that presence of this species will be a useful predictor of sylvatic CHIKV presence.

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Dataset Information

Public perceptions and behaviours related to the risk of infection with Aedes mosquito-borne diseases: a cross-sectional study in Southeastern France.

Objectives

Design

Setting

Participants

Results

Conclusions

Publications

Public perceptions and behaviours related to the risk of infection with Aedes mosquito-borne diseases: a cross-sectional study in Southeastern France.

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