Abstract
Background: Hand-foot-mouth disease (HFMD) is one of the common intestinal infectious diseases worldwide, which caused a huge economic and disease burden in many counties. In China, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention included the HFMD into the Class C reported infectious diseases. The average annual growth rate of HFMD is 16.43%. Shaanxi is a special region which across three temperature zones. Hence, in this study, the spatial-temporal analysis of Shaanxi would reveal the characteristics of distribution of HFMD and explore the related determinants of HFMD.Methods: The county-level and municipal data of Shaanxi province from 2009 to 2018 were applied to research the spatio-temporal characteristics of HFMD and its meteorological determinants. Time series analysis and spatial autocorrelation analysis were applied to analyze the spatial-temporal characteristics of HFMD. This study used spatial econometric panel models to explore the relationship between HFMD and meteorological factors.Results: The incidence rate of HFMD displayed no long-term changing pattern from temporal perspective. The high incidence rate of HFMD were observed from June to September, which is the season with a climate characterized by heavy rain, high temperature, and high humidity. The high spot is mainly located in central region in Shaanxi. The Low-low clusters were mainly found in Northern Shaanxi. As for the meteorological factors analyzed in this study, the waterfall, temperature and humidity in one specific and surrounding region is positive association with incidence rate of HFMD in specific region.Conclusion: The results could be applied by government and general public to take effective measures to prevent diseases. The region-targeted policies could be enacted and implemented in the future. The local government needs take responsible for the health management of immigration and mobile population. The citizen should cultivate good living habits such as hand-washing habit and the eating habit.
Epidemic Changes and Spatio-Temporal Analysis of Japanese Encephalitis in Shaanxi Province, China, 2005–2018
