Abstract
BackgroundCampylobacteriosis is a major cause of gastroenteritis in the UK, and although 70% of cases are associated with food sources, the remainder are probably associated with wider environmental exposure.MethodsIn order to investigate wider environmental transmission, we conducted a spatio-temporal analysis of the association of human cases of Campylobacter in the Tyne catchment with weather, climate, hydrology and land use. A hydrological model was used to predict surface-water flow in the Tyne catchment over 5 years. We analysed associations between population-adjusted Campylobacter case rate and environmental factors hypothesized to be important in disease using a two-stage modelling framework. First, we investigated associations between temporal variation in case rate in relation to surface-water flow, temperature, evapotranspiration and rainfall, using linear mixed-effects models. Second, we used the random effects for the first model to quantify how spatial variation in static landscape features of soil and land use impacted on the likely differences between subcatchment associations of case rate with the temporal variables.ResultsPopulation-adjusted Campylobacter case rates were associated with periods of high predicted surface-water flow, and during above average temperatures. Subcatchments with cattle on stagnogley soils, and to a lesser extent sheep plus cattle grazing, had higher Campylobacter case rates.ConclusionsAreas of stagnogley soils with mixed livestock grazing may be more vulnerable to both Campylobacter spread and exposure during periods of high rainfall, with resultant increased risk of human cases of the disease.
Highlights
In the UK, Campylobacter is a major cause of gastroenteritis, and is thought to result in approximately 700 000 cases per annum, leading to health-associated costs in 2009 of over £50 million.[1]
Highest Campylobacter case rates per head of population were in the Allendales and east of the catchment near Tyneside (Figure 3a)
Soils in the Tyne catchment as a whole are dominated by gley soils with a high clay content, raw peats in the uplands and brown earths on some of the better lowaltitude agricultural land (Table 1)
Summary
In the UK, Campylobacter is a major cause of gastroenteritis, and is thought to result in approximately 700 000 cases per annum, leading to health-associated costs in 2009 of over £50 million.[1]. Methods: In order to investigate wider environmental transmission, we conducted a spatiotemporal analysis of the association of human cases of Campylobacter in the Tyne catchment with weather, climate, hydrology and land use. We investigated associations between temporal variation in case rate in relation to surface-water flow, temperature, evapotranspiration and rainfall, using linear mixed-effects models. We used the random effects for the first model to quantify how spatial variation in static landscape features of soil and land use impacted on the likely differences between subcatchment associations of case rate with the temporal variables. Results: Population-adjusted Campylobacter case rates were associated with periods of high predicted surface-water flow, and during above average temperatures. Conclusions: Areas of stagnogley soils with mixed livestock grazing may be more vulnerable to both Campylobacter spread and exposure during periods of high rainfall, with resultant increased risk of human cases of the disease
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