Influence of urban expansion on Lyme disease risk: A case study in the U.S. I-95 Northeastern corridor

Abstract

Currently Lyme disease (LD) is the most common vector-borne disease in the United States. Understanding the potential effects of urban expansion on LD risk is an emerging global health concern. The U.S. Northeastern corridor has experienced a spatio-temporal increase in Lyme disease (LD) and rapid urban expansion over the past decades. The effects of LULCC factors on LD incidence thus were investigated based on county unit through a geographical detector and statistical methods along the Northeastern I-95 corridor during the year of 2008–2018. Analyses indicated that the Northeastern I-95 corridor was characterized by both higher urbanization and increasing LD cases. About 28% of the study area is covered by urban land, which is more than nine times that of the U.S. average. And LD incidence in the study area was calculated up to 39.1 cases per 100,000 population, nearly five times higher than that of the entire United States (8.3 cases according to CDC). In addition, the similar spatial distribution and spatial pattern between LD cases increase and urban expansion were confirmed. The statistical results showed that their similarity in spatial trend was up to 84.9%. Meanwhile, the correlation coefficients also verified that urban expansion has a significant positive correlation with LD incidence (r = 0.511) at the 99% confidential level. Geographical detector analysis further proved that urban expansion is the dominant factor for LD cases increase (P = 0.21). Moreover, the geographic location where the county is located is also a crucial factor for LD cases' impact (P = 0.15). Regional analysis revealed that LD risk appeared in urbanizing areas rather than urbanized and rural areas. These results suggested that rapidly urbanizing areas may become LD hotspots. Our studies improve understanding of LD occurrence in the context of urbanization and provide a more precise public health message to mitigate the tick-borne disease.