Dataset Information

Exploring the influence of deforestation on dengue fever incidence in the Brazilian Amazonas state.

ABSTRACT:

Introduction

Dengue fever is the most prevalent arboviral disease in the Brazilian Amazon and places a major health, social and economic burden on the region. Its association with deforestation is largely unknown, yet the clearing of tropical rainforests has been linked to the emergence of several infectious diseases, including yellow fever and malaria. This study aimed to explore potential drivers of dengue emergence in the Brazilian Amazon with a focus on deforestation.

Methods

An ecological study design using municipality-level secondary data from the Amazonas state between 2007 and 2017 (reported rural dengue cases, incremental deforestation, socioeconomic characteristics, healthcare and climate factors) was employed. Data were transformed according to the year with the most considerable deforestation. Associations were explored using bivariate analysis and a multivariate generalised linear model.

Results

During the study period 2007-2017, both dengue incidence and deforestation increased. Bivariate analysis revealed increased incidences for some years after deforestation (e.g. mean difference between dengue incidence before and three years after deforestation was 55.47 cases per 100,000, p = 0.002), however, there was no association between the extent of deforestation and dengue incidence. Using a negative binomial regression model adjusted for socioeconomic, climate and healthcare factors, deforestation was not found to be related to dengue incidence. Access to healthcare was found to be the only significant predictor of dengue incidence.

Discussion

Previous research has shown that deforestation facilitates the emergence of vector-borne diseases. However, no significant dose-response relationships between dengue incidence and deforestation in the Brazilian Amazonas state were found in this study. The finding that access to healthcare was the only significant predictor of dengue incidence suggests that incidence may be more dependent on surveillance than transmission. Further research and public attention are needed to better understand environmental effects on human health and to preserve the world's largest rainforest.

SUBMITTER: Kalbus A

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7790412 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Exploring the influence of deforestation on dengue fever incidence in the Brazilian Amazonas state.

Kalbus Alexandra A de Souza Sampaio Vanderson V Boenecke Juliane J Reintjes Ralf R

PloS one 20210107 1

<h4>Introduction</h4>Dengue fever is the most prevalent arboviral disease in the Brazilian Amazon and places a major health, social and economic burden on the region. Its association with deforestation is largely unknown, yet the clearing of tropical rainforests has been linked to the emergence of several infectious diseases, including yellow fever and malaria. This study aimed to explore potential drivers of dengue emergence in the Brazilian Amazon with a focus on deforestation.<h4>Methods</h4> ...[more]

PMID: 33411795

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Project description:BackgroundDengue fever is a mosquito-borne infection transmitted by Aedes aegypti and mainly found in tropical and subtropical regions worldwide. Since its re-introduction in 1986, Brazil has become a hotspot for dengue and has experienced yearly epidemics. As a notifiable infectious disease, Brazil uses a passive epidemiological surveillance system to collect and report cases; however, dengue burden is underestimated. Thus, Internet data streams may complement surveillance activities by providing real-time information in the face of reporting lags.MethodsWe analyzed 19 terms related to dengue using Google Health Trends (GHT), a free-Internet data-source, and compared it with weekly dengue incidence between 2011 to 2016. We correlated GHT data with dengue incidence at the national and state-level for Brazil while using the adjusted R squared statistic as primary outcome measure (0/1). We used survey data on Internet access and variables from the official census of 2010 to identify where GHT could be useful in tracking dengue dynamics. Finally, we used a standardized volatility index on dengue incidence and developed models with different variables with the same objective.ResultsFrom the 19 terms explored with GHT, only seven were able to consistently track dengue. From the 27 states, only 12 reported an adjusted R squared higher than 0.8; these states were distributed mainly in the Northeast, Southeast, and South of Brazil. The usefulness of GHT was explained by the logarithm of the number of Internet users in the last 3 months, the total population per state, and the standardized volatility index.ConclusionsThe potential contribution of GHT in complementing traditional established surveillance strategies should be analyzed in the context of geographical resolutions smaller than countries. For Brazil, GHT implementation should be analyzed in a case-by-case basis. State variables including total population, Internet usage in the last 3 months, and the standardized volatility index could serve as indicators determining when GHT could complement dengue state level surveillance in other countries.

Project description:Tropical forests are diminishing in extent due primarily to the rapid expansion of agriculture, but the future magnitude and geographical distribution of future tropical deforestation is uncertain. Here, we introduce a dynamic and spatially-explicit model of deforestation that predicts the potential magnitude and spatial pattern of Amazon deforestation. Our model differs from previous models in three ways: (1) it is probabilistic and quantifies uncertainty around predictions and parameters; (2) the overall deforestation rate emerges "bottom up", as the sum of local-scale deforestation driven by local processes; and (3) deforestation is contagious, such that local deforestation rate increases through time if adjacent locations are deforested. For the scenarios evaluated-pre- and post-PPCDAM ("Plano de Ação para Proteção e Controle do Desmatamento na Amazônia")-the parameter estimates confirmed that forests near roads and already deforested areas are significantly more likely to be deforested in the near future and less likely in protected areas. Validation tests showed that our model correctly predicted the magnitude and spatial pattern of deforestation that accumulates over time, but that there is very high uncertainty surrounding the exact sequence in which pixels are deforested. The model predicts that under pre-PPCDAM (assuming no change in parameter values due to, for example, changes in government policy), annual deforestation rates would halve between 2050 compared to 2002, although this partly reflects reliance on a static map of the road network. Consistent with other models, under the pre-PPCDAM scenario, states in the south and east of the Brazilian Amazon have a high predicted probability of losing nearly all forest outside of protected areas by 2050. This pattern is less strong in the post-PPCDAM scenario. Contagious spread along roads and through areas lacking formal protection could allow deforestation to reach the core, which is currently experiencing low deforestation rates due to its isolation.

Dataset Information

Exploring the influence of deforestation on dengue fever incidence in the Brazilian Amazonas state.

Introduction

Methods

Results

Discussion

Publications

Exploring the influence of deforestation on dengue fever incidence in the Brazilian Amazonas state.

Similar Datasets

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