Abstract

Modeling Rift Valley Fever Risk in Africa and the US
Track: Health and Human Services
Authors: Nigel Waters, Dennis Nicholas

Since the mid-1970s, several major Rift Valley Fever (RVF) outbreaks have occurred in Africa and the Arabian peninsula. Research has identified a relationship between RVF outbreaks in human populations and environmental factors such as elevated rainfall. There is some concern that RVF could spread to the United States in the same manner that West Nile Virus is thought to have entered the country, via an infected traveler who was subsequently bitten by a mosquito, which then fed on and infected other susceptible hosts. In this paper, we use ordinary least squares (OLS) regression and geographically weighted regression (GWR) to examine the ecological relationship between historical RVF case data and several environmental indicators that serve as predictor variables. These results will help identify corresponding regions within the conterminous United States that are ecologically suitable for an RVF outbreak.