Environmental Risk Factor Diagnosis for Epidemics

Abstract

There is evidence to suggest that the rapidly changing physical environment and modified human behaviors have disrupted the long-term established equilibrium of the chemical composition between human and the Earth environment. We have noticed that environmentally related endemic is increasingly persistent in poorer areas and occuring in rapidly developing regions. This chapter describes two models developed respectively to diagnose the risk of environmentally related diseases and to simulate the spatio-temporal spread of communicable diseases. In the first model, we used birth defects to show the diagnosis of an endemic by (i) detecting risk areas, (ii) identifying risk factors, and (iii) discriminating interaction between these risk factors. Here, a spatial unit is considered a pan within which multiple environmental factors are combined to exert impacts on the human which may lead to either positive or negative health consequences. We were able to show that a diagnosis of environmental risks to population health discloses the locations at risks and the potential contribution of environment factors to the disease. In the second case, we used SARS to show the modeling of a communicable disease by (i) inversing epidemic parameters, (ii) recognizing spatial exposure, (iii) detecting determinants of spread, and (iv) simulating epidemic scenarios under various environmental and control strategies. We were able to demonstrate spatial and temporal scenarios of the disease through the modeling of communicable epidemic spread.