Department of Mathematics, Hanyang University, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
Research Institute for Natural Sciences, Hanyang University, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
Front Public Health. 2023 Jan 20;10:1085077. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2022.1085077. eCollection 2022.
Hepatitis A is a water-borne infectious disease that frequently occurs in unsanitary environments. However, paradoxically, those who have spent their infancy in a sanitary environment are more susceptible to hepatitis A because they do not have the opportunity to acquire natural immunity. In Korea, hepatitis A is prevalent because of the distribution of uncooked seafood, especially during hot and humid summers. In general, the transmission of hepatitis A is known to be dynamically affected by socioeconomic, environmental, and weather-related factors and is heterogeneous in time and space. In this study, we aimed to investigate the spatio-temporal variation of hepatitis A and the effects of socioeconomic and weather-related factors in Korea using a flexible spatio-temporal model. We propose a Bayesian Poisson regression model coupled with spatio-temporal variability to estimate the effects of risk factors. We used weekly hepatitis A incidence data across 250 districts in Korea from 2016 to 2019. We found spatial and temporal autocorrelations of hepatitis A indicating that the spatial distribution of hepatitis A varied dynamically over time. From the estimation results, we noticed that the districts with large proportions of males and foreigners correspond to higher incidences. The average temperature was positively correlated with the incidence, which is in agreement with other studies showing that the incidences in Korea are noticeable in spring and summer due to the increased outdoor activity and intake of stale seafood. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to suggest a spatio-temporal model for hepatitis A across the entirety of Korean. The proposed model could be useful for predicting, preventing, and controlling the spread of hepatitis A.
甲型肝炎是一种经水传播的传染病，常发生在卫生条件较差的环境中。然而，具有讽刺意味的是，那些在卫生环境中度过婴儿期的人更容易感染甲型肝炎，因为他们没有机会获得自然免疫力。在韩国，由于生海鲜的分布，尤其是在炎热潮湿的夏季，甲型肝炎很常见。一般来说，甲型肝炎的传播被认为受到社会经济、环境和天气相关因素的动态影响，在时间和空间上存在异质性。在这项研究中，我们旨在使用灵活的时空模型研究韩国甲型肝炎的时空变化以及社会经济和天气相关因素的影响。我们提出了一个贝叶斯泊松回归模型与时空变异性相结合，以估计风险因素的影响。我们使用了 2016 年至 2019 年韩国 250 个地区每周的甲型肝炎发病率数据。我们发现甲型肝炎存在空间和时间自相关，表明甲型肝炎的空间分布随时间动态变化。从估计结果中，我们注意到男性和外国人比例较大的地区对应的发病率较高。平均温度与发病率呈正相关，这与其他研究结果一致，即由于户外活动增加和摄入变质海鲜，韩国的发病率在春季和夏季较为明显。据我们所知，这项研究首次提出了一种针对韩国全部地区的甲型肝炎时空模型。所提出的模型可用于预测、预防和控制甲型肝炎的传播。
