Liu Longjian, Nagar Garvita, Diarra Ousmane, Shosanya Stephanie, Sharma Geeta, Afesumeh David, Krishna Akshatha
Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Drexel University Dornsife School of Public Health, Philadelphia, PA 19104, United States.
World J Diabetes. 2022 Jul 15;13(7):584-586. doi: 10.4239/wjd.v13.i7.584.
Spatial epidemiology is the description and analysis of geographic patterns and variations in disease risk factors, morbidity and mortality with respect to their distributions associated with demographic, socioeconomic, environmental, health behavior, and genetic risk factors, and time-varying changes. In the Letter to Editor, we had a brief description of the practice for the mortality and the space-time patterns of John Snow's map of cholera epidemic in London, United Kingdom in 1854. This map is one of the earliest public heath practices of developing and applying spatial epidemiology. In the early history, spatial epidemiology was predominantly applied in infectious disease and risk factor studies. However, since the recent decades, noncommunicable diseases have become the leading cause of death in both developing and developed countries, spatial epidemiology has been used in the study of noncommunicable disease. In the Letter, we addressed two examples that applied spatial epidemiology to cluster and identify stroke belt and diabetes belt across the states and counties in the United States. Similar to any other epidemiological study design and analysis approaches, spatial epidemiology has its limitations. We should keep in mind when applying spatial epidemiology in research and in public health practice.
空间流行病学是对疾病风险因素、发病率和死亡率的地理模式及变异进行描述和分析，这些模式和变异与人口统计学、社会经济、环境、健康行为和遗传风险因素以及随时间变化的情况相关。在给编辑的信中，我们简要描述了1854年英国伦敦霍乱疫情约翰·斯诺地图的死亡率及时空模式的实践情况。这张地图是开展和应用空间流行病学的最早公共卫生实践之一。在早期历史中，空间流行病学主要应用于传染病和风险因素研究。然而，近几十年来，非传染性疾病已成为发展中国家和发达国家的主要死因，空间流行病学已被用于非传染性疾病的研究。在信中，我们列举了两个将空间流行病学应用于美国各州和县中风带和糖尿病带的聚类和识别的例子。与任何其他流行病学研究设计和分析方法一样，空间流行病学也有其局限性。我们在研究和公共卫生实践中应用空间流行病学时应牢记这一点。
