Comparison of Enzootic Risk Measures for Predicting West Nile Disease, Los Angeles, California, USA, 2004–2010

Abstract

In Los Angeles, California, USA, 2 epidemics of West Nile virus (WNV) disease have occurred since WNV was recognized in 2003. To assess which measure of risk was most predictive of human cases, we compared 3 measures: the California Mosquito-Borne Virus Surveillance and Response Plan Assessment, the vector index, and the Dynamic Continuous-Area Space-Time system. A case–crossover study was performed by using symptom onset dates from 384 persons with WNV infection to determine their relative environmental exposure to high-risk conditions as measured by each method. Receiver-operating characteristic plots determined thresholds for each model, and the area under the curve was used to compare methods. We found that the best risk assessment model for human WNV cases included surveillance data from avian, mosquito, and climate sources.

Keywords

• West Nile virus
• Culex pipiens quinquefasciatus
• risk assessment
• Mantel-Haentzel relative risk
• Los Angeles
• area under the curve (AUC)