Zhang Huiguo, Chen Geng, Chen Mengqi, Wang Siang, Zhang Zhi
College of Mathematics and System Science, Xinjiang University, Urumqi, China.
Department of Statistics, School of Mathematics and Statistics, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, 710049, China.
Sci Rep. 2025 Jul 1;15(1):22194. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-07936-0.
Spatial autocorrelation is an important epidemiological feature of hand, foot, and mouth disease (HFMD). However, few studies have included this feature in the regression relationship between HFMD incidence and driving factors to explore its impact on incidence. In this paper, we propose a mixed geographically and temporally weighted autoregressive (MGTWAR) model to explore the impact of spatial autocorrelation and meteorological factors on the incidence of HFMD among children in Inner Mongolia, China, in 2016. In addition, we proposed a residual-based bootstrap test to identify the spatial autocorrelation in the incidence of HFMD and the spatiotemporal heterogeneity in regression relationships. The analysis results indicate that simultaneously modeling the spatiotemporal heterogeneity and spatial dependence of the incidence of HFMD can effectively improve the fitting effect of the model in terms of [Formula: see text]. The MGTWAR model, compared with the GTWAR model, can maintain a simpler model structure while achieving a relatively smaller loss in terms of fitting accuracy, thus having better interpretability. The incidence of HFMD among children in neighboring counties in the Inner Mongolia region shows a noteworthy positive spatial autocorrelation characteristic. Furthermore, this spatial autocorrelation exhibits considerable variation across different regions and months. The impacts of air temperature (AT), air pressure (AP), and average wind speed (AW) on the incidence of HFMD have significant spatiotemporal heterogeneity, and relative humidity (RH) has a global positive influence on HFMD incidence. On the whole, the degree of influence of meteorological factors on the incidence of HFMD is in the order of AT > AP > RH > AW, and the influence of spatial dependence of the incidence of HFMD can not be ignored when exploring the driving factors of HFMD incidence and formulating preventive measures.
空间自相关是手足口病(HFMD)的一个重要流行病学特征。然而,很少有研究将这一特征纳入手足口病发病率与驱动因素之间的回归关系中,以探讨其对发病率的影响。在本文中,我们提出了一种混合地理和时间加权自回归(MGTWAR)模型,以探讨空间自相关和气象因素对2016年中国内蒙古儿童手足口病发病率的影响。此外,我们提出了一种基于残差的自助检验,以识别手足口病发病率中的空间自相关以及回归关系中的时空异质性。分析结果表明,对手足口病发病率的时空异质性和空间依赖性同时进行建模,可以在[公式:见原文]方面有效提高模型的拟合效果。与GTWAR模型相比,MGTWAR模型可以保持更简单的模型结构,同时在拟合精度方面实现相对较小的损失,从而具有更好的可解释性。内蒙古地区相邻县儿童手足口病发病率呈现出值得注意的正空间自相关特征。此外,这种空间自相关在不同地区和月份表现出相当大的差异。气温(AT)、气压(AP)和平均风速(AW)对手足口病发病率的影响具有显著的时空异质性,相对湿度(RH)对手足口病发病率具有全局正向影响。总体而言,气象因素对手足口病发病率的影响程度依次为AT>AP>RH>AW,在探索手足口病发病率的驱动因素和制定预防措施时,手足口病发病率的空间依赖性影响不可忽视。