Added-value of mosquito vector breeding sites from street view images in the risk mapping of dengue incidence in Thailand

PLoS Negl Trop Dis. 2021 Mar 8;15(3):e0009122. doi: 10.1371/journal.pntd.0009122. eCollection 2021 Mar.

Abstract

Dengue is an emerging vector-borne viral disease across the world. The primary dengue mosquito vectors breed in containers with sufficient water and nutrition. Outdoor containers can be detected from geotagged images using state-of-the-art deep learning methods. In this study, we utilize such container information from street view images in developing a risk mapping model and determine the added value of including container information in predicting dengue risk. We developed seasonal-spatial models in which the target variable dengue incidence was explained using weather and container variable predictors. Linear mixed models with fixed and random effects are employed in our models to account for different characteristics of containers and weather variables. Using data from three provinces of Thailand between 2015 and 2018, the models are developed at the sub-district level resolution to facilitate the development of effective targeted intervention strategies. The performance of the models is evaluated with two baseline models: a classic linear model and a linear mixed model without container information. The performance evaluated with the correlation coefficients, R-squared, and AIC shows the proposed model with the container information outperforms both baseline models in all three provinces. Through sensitivity analysis, we investigate the containers that have a high impact on dengue risk. Our findings indicate that outdoor containers identified from street view images can be a useful data source in building effective dengue risk models and that the resulting models have potential in helping to target container elimination interventions.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Aedes / growth & development*
  • Aedes / virology
  • Animals
  • Breeding
  • Dengue / epidemiology*
  • Dengue / transmission*
  • Geography
  • Humans
  • Internet
  • Models, Theoretical
  • Mosquito Control / methods*
  • Mosquito Vectors / growth & development*
  • Mosquito Vectors / virology
  • Spatial Analysis
  • Thailand / epidemiology
  • Weather

Grants and funding

This work was partially supported by a fellowship from the Hanse-Wissenschaftskolleg Institute for Advanced Study (https://www.h-w-k.de/), Delmenhorst, Germany to MSY, by a grant from the Mahidol University Office of International Relations to PH in support of the MIRU joint unit, and by the Volkswagen Foundation, Germany (https://www.volkswagenstiftung.de/en/foundation) through a Lichtenberg professorship for JS and conducted within the Bremen Spatial Cognition Center (BSCC), Germany. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.