Abstract
BackgroundThe effects of climate variations on bacillary dysentery incidence have gained more recent concern. However, the multi-collinearity among meteorological factors affects the accuracy of correlation with bacillary dysentery incidence.MethodsAs a remedy, a modified method to combine ridge regression and hierarchical cluster analysis was proposed for investigating the effects of climate variations on bacillary dysentery incidence in northeast China.ResultsAll weather indicators, temperatures, precipitation, evaporation and relative humidity have shown positive correlation with the monthly incidence of bacillary dysentery, while air pressure had a negative correlation with the incidence. Ridge regression and hierarchical cluster analysis showed that during 1987–1996, relative humidity, temperatures and air pressure affected the transmission of the bacillary dysentery. During this period, all meteorological factors were divided into three categories. Relative humidity and precipitation belonged to one class, temperature indexes and evaporation belonged to another class, and air pressure was the third class.ConclusionMeteorological factors have affected the transmission of bacillary dysentery in northeast China. Bacillary dysentery prevention and control would benefit from by giving more consideration to local climate variations.
Highlights
The effects of climate variations on bacillary dysentery incidence have gained more recent concern
Based on the combination of these above two methods and existing surveillance data (1950–1996), the present study aims to investigate the effects of climate variations on bacillary dysentery incidence in northeast China
Relative humidity and precipitation belonged to one class, temperature indexes and evaporation belonged to another class, and air pressure was the third class (Figure 4)
Summary
The effects of climate variations on bacillary dysentery incidence have gained more recent concern. The multi-collinearity among meteorological factors affects the accuracy of correlation with bacillary dysentery incidence. Bacillary dysentery is an infectious disease of the intestinal tract caused by bacteria of the genus Shigella and is spread by contact with patients or carriers and though food or water contaminated by their feces. BMC Infectious Diseases 2008, 8:130 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2334/8/130 countries and China is no exception[3]. The effects of climate variations on bacillary dysentery incidence have gained more concerns recently. Several studies have explored the association between diarrhoeal diseases and climate variation [4,5]. Many existing studies neglect the multi-collinearity among meteorological factors which affected the accuracy of correlation with bacillary dysentery incidence
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