Geographic profiling as a novel spatial tool for targeting infectious disease control

Abstract

BackgroundGeographic profiling is a statistical tool originally developed in criminology to prioritise large lists of suspects in cases of serial crime. Here, we use two data sets - one historical and one modern - to show how it can be used to locate the sources of infectious disease.ResultsFirst, we re-analyse data from a classic epidemiological study, the 1854 London cholera outbreak. Using 321 disease sites as input, we evaluate the locations of 13 neighbourhood water pumps. The Broad Street pump - the outbreak's source- ranks first, situated in the top 0.2% of the geoprofile. We extend our study with an analysis of reported malaria cases in Cairo, Egypt, using 139 disease case locations to rank 59 mosquitogenic local water sources, seven of which tested positive for the vector Anopheles sergentii. Geographic profiling ranks six of these seven sites in positions 1-6, all in the top 2% of the geoprofile. In both analyses the method outperformed other measures of spatial central tendency.ConclusionsWe suggest that geographic profiling could form a useful component of integrated control strategies relating to a wide variety of infectious diseases, since evidence-based targeting of interventions is more efficient, environmentally friendly and cost-effective than untargeted intervention.

A New Algorithm for Identifying Possible Epidemic Sources with Application to the German Escherichia coli Outbreak

“…The distance from the outbreak (r) is not a flawed metric [6]. It describes a circle of radius "r" whose area describes a meaningful "searching zone" and does not have an arbitrary link to the "binning strategy" chosen by the researchers.…”

“…The intelligent discovery of the outbreak of the cholera epidemic has already been treated with modern mathematics and statistics [1,6].…”

“…The Rossmo Algorithm [5,6] uses the block (Manhattan) distance. It employs four free parameters, each of which has to be calibrated empirically according to the situation.…”

“…We have decided not to consider certain trivial algorithms such as the spatial central tendency because they have already been shown to be too naive and not competitive (Le Comber [6], Stevenson [7]). …”

Spatial methods for infectious disease outbreak investigations: systematic literature review

“…Geographic profiling is another modelling technique used to generate hypotheses about the locations of sources of infections. Le Comber and colleagues used this method to identify most likely locations of mosquito breeding sites using residential locations of a series of cases of malaria in Cairo, Egypt [34].…”