The Influence of Sociodemographic Factors on the Engagement of Citizens in the Detection of Dead Corvids During the Emergence of West Nile Virus in Ontario, Canada.

Abstract

West Nile virus (WNv) was introduced into North America in 1999, and by 2002 was identified in most regions of Ontario, Canada. Surveillance of WNv included testing of corvids found dead and reported by citizens across Ontario, which at the time was a novel citizen science application for disease surveillance. While this surveillance program was successful for timely identification of WNv as it emerged and spread across the province, it is important to consider the influence of non-disease factors on surveillance data collected by the public. The objective of this study was to examine associations between rates of citizen phone reports of dead corvids and sociodemographic factors within the geographic areas where the reports were obtained. The data were grouped by forward sortation area (FSA), a geographical area based upon postal codes, which was linked with census data. Associations between the weekly rate of citizen reports and FSA-level sociodemographic factors were measured using multilevel negative binomial models. There were 12,295 phone call reports of dead corvids made by citizens in 83.3% of Ontario FSAs. Factors associated with the weekly rate of phone reports included the proportion of high-rise housing, the proportion of households with children, the proportion of seniors in the population, the proportion of citizens with no knowledge of either official language and the latitude of the FSA. There were higher rates of citizen phone reports in FSAs with <80% high-rise housing and greater proportions of households with children. A positive and negative association in the rate of calls with the proportion of seniors and latitude of the FSA, respectively, were moderated by the proportion of the population with knowledge of official language(s). Understanding the sociodemographic characteristics associated with citizen reporting rates of sentinels for disease surveillance can be used to inform advanced cluster detection methods such as applying the spatial scan test with normal distribution on residuals from a regression model to reduce confounding. In citizen-derived data collected for disease surveillance, this type of approach can be helpful to improve the interpretation of cluster detection results beyond what is expected.