Abstract
This study uses
social network and spatial analytical methods
simultaneously to understand cholera
transmission in rural Bangladesh. Both have been
used separately to incorporate context into
health studies, but using them together is a new
and recent approach. Data include a spatially
referenced longitudinal demographic database
consisting of approximately 200,000 people and
a database of all laboratory-confirmed cholera
cases from 1983 to 2003. A complete
kinship-based network linking households is
created, and distance matrices are also
constructed to model spatial relationships. A
spatial error-social effects model tested for
cholera clustering in socially linked households
while accounting for spatial factors. Results
show that there was social clustering in five
out of twenty-one years while accounting for
both known and unknown environmental variables.
This suggests that environmental cholera
transmission is significant and social networks
also influence transmission, but not as
consistently. Simultaneous spatial and social
network analysis may improve understanding of
disease transmission.
Citation
ID:
37616
Ref Key:
giebultowicz2011theinterdisciplinary