Development of Vector-Borne Disease Forecasting Models Using Satellite Remote Sensing Techniques

In order to establish effective disease early warning systems (DEWS) for vector-borne diseases, prediction models have been developed using diverse environmental parameters. Satellite remote sensing techniques produce an abundance of environmental data which might be relevant to vector ecology, habitats, and human exposure risks to diseases. Using remotely sensed images has become a novel tool in studying vector-borne disease transmission dynamics. Dengue demonstrated strong seasonal and inter-annual variability in Southern Taiwan. The study aims on investigating comprehensive spatial and temporal patterns of dengue outbreaks throughout 1998-2012 in Southern Taiwan. Remotely sensed images, spatial epidemiology, and geographic information systems (GIS) will be integrated to establish dengue forecasting models. There are three goals in this proposal: (1) Explore spatial and temporal clusters of dengue outbreaks. Disease hot spots and temporal transmission patterns will be detected by using spatial statistical methods. (2) Investigate the influences of urban structures and land use types on the dengue transmission, and evaluate whether the geographic distributions of dengue incidences could be altered by the specific land use changes. (3) Analyze the impacts of land surface temperature, precipitation, and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) which are derived from satellite remote sensing techniques on the inter-annual variability of dengue outbreaks. The dengue forecasting models will be developed to predict the risk levels of the dengue incidence in the current year using pre-season climatic conditions. This study will reveal the precise space-time distributions of dengue outbreaks in Southern Taiwan. The influences of multiple environmental conditions, including land use types, urbanization, and climatic variables, on transmission dynamics will be discussed. We expect that the dengue forecasting models incorporating novel satellite remote sensing data can provide important information for establishing the dengue early warning system in Taiwan.