Spatial analysis of Dengue through the reproduction numbers relating to socioeconomic features: Case studies on two Brazilian urban centers

Abstract

The study of the propagation of infectious diseases in urban centers finds a close connection with their population's social characteristics and behavior. This work performs a spatial analysis of dengue cases in urban centers based on the basic reproduction numbers, R0, and incidence by planning areas (PAs), as well as their correlations with the Human Development Index (HDI) and the number of trips. We analyzed dengue epidemics in 2002 at two Brazilian urban centers, Belo Horizonte (BH) and Rio de Janeiro (RJ), using PAs as spatial units. Our results reveal heterogeneous spatial scenarios for both cities, with very weak correlations between R0 and both the number of trips and the HDI; in BH, the values of R0 show a less spatial heterogeneous pattern than in RJ. For BH, there are moderate correlations between incidence and both the number of trips and the HDI; meanwhile, they weakly correlate for RJ. Finally, the absence of strong correlations between the considered measures indicates that the transmission process should be treated considering the city as a whole.

Keywords

• Dengue
• Mathematical model
• Basic reproduction number
• Urban mobility
• Urban indices