Utility of Spatial Point-Pattern Analysis Using Residential and Workplace Geospatial Information to Localize...

Area of Science:

• Epidemiology
• Spatial Analysis
• Public Health

Background:

• Effective outbreak control relies on identifying the source.
• Current spatial methods for outbreak investigation are underutilized due to complexity and performance issues.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate simple spatial methods for localizing disease outbreak sources.
• To propose and validate a modified centrographic statistic for improved source localization.

Main Methods:

• Simulated 30 mock outbreaks to compare 5 parameter-free spatial analysis methods.
• Utilized residential and workplace addresses to determine outbreak origins.
• Proposed and tested a 'center of minimum geometric distance with address selection' modification.

Main Results:

• The proposed method localized mock outbreak sources within a 500 m radius in most cases when using both address types.
• The method demonstrated good performance even with as few as 10 cases, given sufficient workplace data.
• Successful application to historical outbreaks, with limitations noted for multisite outbreaks from a single supplier.

Conclusions:

• A modified spatial analysis method effectively localizes disease outbreak sources.
• Combining residential and workplace addresses significantly enhances localization accuracy.
• This approach offers a practical tool for public health officials in outbreak investigations.