Department of Environmental Health, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
PLoS Pathog. 2011 Apr;7(4):e1002013. doi: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1002013. Epub 2011 Apr 28.
For many pathogens with environmental stages, or those carried by vectors or intermediate hosts, disease transmission is strongly influenced by pathogen, host, and vector movements across complex landscapes, and thus quantitative measures of movement rate and direction can reveal new opportunities for disease management and intervention. Genetic assignment methods are a set of powerful statistical approaches useful for establishing population membership of individuals. Recent theoretical improvements allow these techniques to be used to cost-effectively estimate the magnitude and direction of key movements in infectious disease systems, revealing important ecological and environmental features that facilitate or limit transmission. Here, we review the theory, statistical framework, and molecular markers that underlie assignment methods, and we critically examine recent applications of assignment tests in infectious disease epidemiology. Research directions that capitalize on use of the techniques are discussed, focusing on key parameters needing study for improved understanding of patterns of disease.
对于许多具有环境阶段的病原体，或那些由载体或中间宿主携带的病原体，疾病传播受到病原体、宿主和载体在复杂景观中的移动的强烈影响，因此，移动速度和方向的定量测量可以为疾病管理和干预提供新的机会。遗传分配方法是一套强大的统计方法，可用于确定个体的种群归属。最近的理论改进使这些技术能够有效地用于估计传染病系统中关键运动的幅度和方向，揭示促进或限制传播的重要生态和环境特征。在这里，我们回顾了分配方法的理论、统计框架和分子标记，并批判性地审查了分配测试在传染病流行病学中的最新应用。讨论了利用这些技术的研究方向，重点是需要研究的关键参数，以提高对疾病模式的理解。
