Ecological and socioeconomic factors associated with globally reported tick-borne viruses

Abstract

Background: Public health resources are often allocated based on reported disease cases. However, for lesser-known infectious diseases, such as tick-borne viruses, disease risk reporting should account for more than just the biology of the disease and include mediating factors such as socioeconomics which can determine if an infection gets reported. Objectives: We aim to identify country-level ecological and socioeconomic factors important to reporting tick-borne viruses and examine whether countries with more economic resources have a higher likelihood of reporting resource intensive incidences. Our study goals are to determine potential country-level interventions that could enhance recognition of and reduce the health burden associated with tick-borne viruses. Methods: We apply machine learning to the most comprehensive tick-borne virus database, ZOVER, with a curated global trait matrix of 23 environmental and socioeconomic predictors. Results: We identified socioeconomic factors driving reported tick-borne viruses captured in the database at a country level. Countries that were more likely to report tick-borne viruses had a lower Gini Index (i.e., countries with less inequalities such as Nordic countries), increased dollars spent on pesticide imports, and had institutions (i.e., IVSA chapter) or individuals with agricultural, forestry, or veterinary knowledge (i.e., % of tertiary grads) present. Additional characteristics included countries with a lower percent of population exposed to conflict also had a higher probability of reporting a tick-borne virus. As expected, broad environmental factors such as the Koeppen-Geiger climate classification zone was important and identified Mediterranean climate or humid subtropical climate as environmentally suitable zones for reported tick-borne viruses. Discussion: For environmentally persistent pathogens, the role of ancillary factors mediating reporting must be considered for allocating resources to interventions. In addition, while direct interruption of transmission is important, socioeconomic interventions may be the greatest tool to reduce local disease burden.