A novel sampling method to measure socioeconomic drivers of Aedes albopictus distribution in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina

Search for this publication on Google Scholar
Whiteman, A., Delmelle, E., Rapp, T., & Chen, S. (2018). A novel sampling method to measure socioeconomic drivers of Aedes albopictus distribution in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. International Journal Of Environmental Research And Public Health. https://doi.org/doi:10.3390/ijerph15102179
Download PDF

Analytics

31 views ◎
3 downloads ⇓


Description

Graduate, Climate change, urbanization, and globalization have facilitated the spread of Aedes mosquitoes into regions that were previously unsuitable, causing an increased threat of arbovirus transmission on a global scale. While numerous studies have addressed the urban ecology of Ae. albopictus, few have accounted for socioeconomic factors that affect their range in urban regions. Here we introduce an original sampling design for Ae. albopictus, that uses a spatial optimization process to identify urban collection sites based on both geographic parameters as well as the gradient of socioeconomic variables present in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, encompassing the city of Charlotte, a rapidly growing urban environment. We collected 3645 specimens of Ae. albopictus (87% of total samples) across 12 weeks at the 90 optimized site locations and modelled the relationships between the abundance of gravid Ae. albopictus and a variety of neighborhood socioeconomic attributes as well as land cover characteristics. Our results demonstrate that the abundance of gravid Ae. albopictus is inversely related to the socioeconomic status of the neighborhood and directly related to both landscape heterogeneity as well as proportions of particular resident races/ethnicities. We present our results alongside a description of our novel sampling scheme and its usefulness as an approach to urban vector epidemiology. Additionally, we supply recommendations for future investigations into the socioeconomic determinants of vector-borne disease risk.

Details
Title

A novel sampling method to measure socioeconomic drivers of Aedes albopictus distribution in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina

Author(s)

Whiteman, Ari
Delmelle, Eric
Rapp, Tyler
Chen, Shi

UNC Charlotte Affiliate Type

Graduate

Extent

1 online resource

Date Created

2018

Genre

articles

Resource Type

text

Abstract

Climate change, urbanization, and globalization have facilitated the spread of Aedes mosquitoes into regions that were previously unsuitable, causing an increased threat of arbovirus transmission on a global scale. While numerous studies have addressed the urban ecology of Ae. albopictus, few have accounted for socioeconomic factors that affect their range in urban regions. Here we introduce an original sampling design for Ae. albopictus, that uses a spatial optimization process to identify urban collection sites based on both geographic parameters as well as the gradient of socioeconomic variables present in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, encompassing the city of Charlotte, a rapidly growing urban environment. We collected 3645 specimens of Ae. albopictus (87% of total samples) across 12 weeks at the 90 optimized site locations and modelled the relationships between the abundance of gravid Ae. albopictus and a variety of neighborhood socioeconomic attributes as well as land cover characteristics. Our results demonstrate that the abundance of gravid Ae. albopictus is inversely related to the socioeconomic status of the neighborhood and directly related to both landscape heterogeneity as well as proportions of particular resident races/ethnicities. We present our results alongside a description of our novel sampling scheme and its usefulness as an approach to urban vector epidemiology. Additionally, we supply recommendations for future investigations into the socioeconomic determinants of vector-borne disease risk.

Subjects--Topics

Mosquitoes as carriers of disease
Public health

Is Part Of

International journal of environmental research and public health

Language

English

Published Version (Please cite this version)

doi:10.3390/ijerph15102179

Publisher's Version

https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph15102179

Rights

This item may be protected by copyright and other related rights. Atkins Library provides access to this item for educational and research purposes only; other uses require the permission of the copyright holder.