Epidemiological estimates of Acute Respiratory diseases and Asthma using Geostatistical tools in Rawalpindi, Pakistan
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1
Fatima Jinnah Women University, Pakistan
Respiratory diseases are a major cause of death in developing countries. Allocation of scarce resources in developing countries is a major problem for which identification of high risk areas and patterns of disease spread are necessary. A Cohort study design was used in this study.Using 2011-2015 diseased person data for Acute Respiratory Diseases and Asthma from District Health Office, Rawalpindi we examined emerging hotspots and spatiotemporal trends of diseases spread by using geostatistical tools in ArcGIS 10.2. Climatic parameters and land use was also correlated with disease incidence to examine the effect on disease spread. Pattern of diseases was found to be random throughout the district and incidence rate per thousand people was highest for tehsil Kotli Sattian. Most of the hotspots lied in the areas with large settlements and dense vegetation cover. Cold related Asthma and Acute Respiratory Diseases was also revealed along with the seasonal outbreaks of Asthma in mid spring and autumn. Shift of Asthma towards denser vegetation areas and towards agricultural areas was seen for Acute Respiratory Diseases. Climatic parameters such as temperature and rainfall also showed strong correlation with disease incidence. Rawalpindi district is prone to cold weather related Asthma and Acute Respiratory Diseases. There is a need to conduct detailed study on aeroallergens and air pollution in study area especially in high risk areas to control the spread and intensity of these respiratory diseases.
Acknowledgements
Authors are thankful to District Health Office for provision of data
Keywords:
Respiratory diseases,
Hotspot analysis,
Air Pollutants,
Pakistan,
Asthama
Conference:
GeoVet 2019. Novel spatio-temporal approaches in the era of Big Data, Davis, United States, 8 Oct - 10 Oct, 2019.
Presentation Type:
Regular oral presentation
Topic:
Emerging GIS, data science and sensor technologies adapted to animal, plant and human health, including precision medicine and precision farming
Citation:
Saeed
AS and
Younis
J
(2019). Epidemiological estimates of Acute Respiratory diseases and Asthma using Geostatistical tools in Rawalpindi, Pakistan.
Front. Vet. Sci.
Conference Abstract:
GeoVet 2019. Novel spatio-temporal approaches in the era of Big Data.
doi: 10.3389/conf.fvets.2019.05.00005
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Received:
17 Jun 2019;
Published Online:
27 Sep 2019.
*
Correspondence:
Mx. Ahmad S Saeed, Fatima Jinnah Women University, Rawalpindi, Pakistan, drsaeed@fjwu.edu.pk