West Nile virus: strategies for predicting municipal-level infection

The appearance and spread of West Nile virus (WNv) in North America represent a recent example of how mosquito-borne diseases can develop in new settings. Understanding the epidemiological, biological, and geographical aspects of WNv is critical to developing a greater understanding of how newly emerging, migrating, or evolving vector-borne infectious disease can develop globally. To aid in the allocation of resources that mitigate future outbreaks and to better understand the geographic nature of WNv in the North American prairies, we employ spatial and nonspatial modeling methods to predict municipal-level risk of human WNv infection rates. We use data based on a combination of routinely collected electronic data sources. Our findings suggest general agreement between spatial and nonspatial approaches, and results are consistent with seroprevalence-based estimates. We suggest that spatial models based on administrative data can offer estimates of relative risk in human populations at less cost, and in a timelier manner than estimates based on serology specimens.