Abstract
Backgrounds/ObjectiveSchistosomiasis is still a major public health problem in China, despite the fact that the government has implemented a series of strategies to prevent and control the spread of the parasitic disease. Advanced warning and reliable forecasting can help policymakers to adjust and implement strategies more effectively, which will lead to the control and elimination of schistosomiasis. Our aim is to explore the application of a hybrid forecasting model to track the trends of the prevalence of schistosomiasis in humans, which provides a methodological basis for predicting and detecting schistosomiasis infection in endemic areas.MethodsA hybrid approach combining the autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) model and the nonlinear autoregressive neural network (NARNN) model to forecast the prevalence of schistosomiasis in the future four years. Forecasting performance was compared between the hybrid ARIMA-NARNN model, and the single ARIMA or the single NARNN model.ResultsThe modelling mean square error (MSE), mean absolute error (MAE) and mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) of the ARIMA-NARNN model was 0.1869×10−4, 0.0029, 0.0419 with a corresponding testing error of 0.9375×10−4, 0.0081, 0.9064, respectively. These error values generated with the hybrid model were all lower than those obtained from the single ARIMA or NARNN model. The forecasting values were 0.75%, 0.80%, 0.76% and 0.77% in the future four years, which demonstrated a no-downward trend.ConclusionThe hybrid model has high quality prediction accuracy in the prevalence of schistosomiasis, which provides a methodological basis for future schistosomiasis monitoring and control strategies in the study area. It is worth attempting to utilize the hybrid detection scheme in other schistosomiasis-endemic areas including other infectious diseases.
Highlights
Schistosomiasis is a neglected tropical parasitic disease caused by blood-flukes of the genus Schistosoma [1,2], which is endemic in tropical and sub-tropical areas [3]
In China, schistosomiasis is caused by Schistosoma japonicum, which is regarded as a major parasitic disease with a documented history of over 2100 years
Qianjiang city, which is located in the south-central Hubei Province, suffers from a very high prevalence of Schistosomiasis japonica because most of the district is covered by lakes and marshes that are suitable for the breeding of snails
Summary
Schistosomiasis is a neglected tropical parasitic disease caused by blood-flukes of the genus Schistosoma [1,2], which is endemic in tropical and sub-tropical areas [3]. In China, schistosomiasis is caused by Schistosoma japonicum, which is regarded as a major parasitic disease with a documented history of over 2100 years. In the 1950s, the population of China was approximately 600 million with an estimated 11.6 million people infected [9]. By 2011, the number of infected people had been reduced to an estimated 280,000 [13]. Despite these sustained efforts and achievements, there are still many major challenges such as patient susceptibility to infection and re-infection, the effects of global warming, increased population mobility, the existing extensive snail habitats with complicated environments, ecosystem changes caused by the construction of the Three Gorges Dams and the South–north Water Conversion Project [14,15]. Complete elimination of schistosomiasis will take a long time and has proven to be a difficult task
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