Background:
Relatively few studies have examined the association between air pollution and stroke mortality. Inconsistent and inclusive results from existing studies on air pollution and stroke justify the need to continue to investigate the linkage between stroke and air pollution. No studies have been done to investigate the association between stroke and greenness. The objective of this study was to examine if there is association of stroke with air pollution, income and greenness in northwest Florida.
Results:
Our study used an ecological geographical approach and dasymetric mapping technique. We adopted a Bayesian hierarchical model with a convolution prior considering five census tract specific covariates. A 95% credible set which defines an interval having a 0.95 posterior probability of containing the parameter for each covariate was calculated from Markov Chain Monte Carlo simulations. The 95% credible sets are (-0.286, -0.097) for household income, (0.034, 0.144) for traffic air pollution effect, (0.419, 1.495) for emission density of monitored point source polluters, (0.413, 1.522) for simple point density of point source polluters without emission data, and (-0.289,-0.031) for greenness. Household income and greenness show negative effects (the posterior densities primarily cover negative values). Air pollution covariates have positive effects (the 95% credible sets cover positive values).
Conclusions:
High risk of stroke mortality was found in areas with low income level, high air pollution level, and low level of exposure to green space.
Background:
West Nile virus (WNV) emerged as a threat to public and veterinary health in the Midwest United States in 2001 and continues to cause significant morbidity and mortality annually. To investigate biotic and abiotic factors associated with disease incidence, cases of reported human disease caused by West Nile virus (WNV) in the state of Iowa were aggregated by census block groups in Iowa for the years 2002-2006. Spatially explicit data on landscape, demographic, and climatic conditions were collated and analyzed by census block groups. Statistical tests of differences between means and distributions of landscape, demographic, and climatic conditions for census block groups with and without WNV incidence were carried out. Entomological data from Iowa is considered at the state level to add context to the potential ecological phenomenon taking place.
Results:
Numerous statistically significant differences were shown in the means and distributions of various landscape and demographic variables for census block groups with and without WNV incidence. Variables showing differences included stream density, road density, land cover compositions, population density, presence of irrigation, and presence of animal feeding operations. Climatic means and distributions varied in census block groups with or without incidence. Precipitation, dew point, and minimum temperature in year of and for the previous year exhibited statistically significantly different means in at least one year of analysis. However, the differences were not consistent between years.
Conclusions:
The analysis of human WNV incidence by census block groups in Iowa demonstrated unique landscape, demographic, and climatic associations. Our results indicate that multiple ecological WNV transmission dynamics are most likely taking place in Iowa. In 2003 and 2006, drier conditions were associated with WNV incidence. Most significantly, rural agricultural settings were shown to be strongly associated with human WNV incidence in Iowa.
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