Abstract

A key question for infectious disease dynamics is the impact of the climate on future burden. Here, we evaluate the climate drivers of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), an important determinant of disease in young children. We combine a dataset of county-level observations from the US with state-level observations from Mexico, spanning much of the global range of climatological conditions. Using a combination of nonlinear epidemic models with statistical techniques, we find consistent patterns of climate drivers at a continental scale explaining latitudinal differences in the dynamics and timing of local epidemics. Strikingly, estimated effects of precipitation and humidity on transmission mirror prior results for influenza. We couple our model with projections for future climate, to show that temperature-driven increases to humidity may lead to a northward shift in the dynamic patterns observed and that the likelihood of severe outbreaks of RSV hinges on projections for extreme rainfall.

Details

Title
Epidemic dynamics of respiratory syncytial virus in current and future climates
Author
Baker, Rachel E 1   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Mahmud, Ayesha S 2 ; Wagner, Caroline E 3 ; Yang, Wenchang 4   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Pitzer, Virginia E 5 ; Viboud, Cecile 6 ; Vecchi, Gabriel A 7   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Metcalf, C Jessica E 8   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Grenfell, Bryan T 9 

1  Princeton Environmental Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA 
2  Planetary Health Alliance, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA; Department of Demography, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA 
3  Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA 
4  Department of Geosciences, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA 
5  Department of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases, Yale School of Public Health, New Haven, CT, USA 
6  Division of International Epidemiology and Population Studies, Fogarty International Center, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA 
7  Princeton Environmental Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA; Department of Geosciences, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA 
8  Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA; Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA 
9  Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA; Division of International Epidemiology and Population Studies, Fogarty International Center, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA; Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA 
Pages
1-8
Publication year
2019
Publication date
Dec 2019
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
e-ISSN
20411723
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-13562-y
ProQuest document ID
2321692422
Copyright
© 2019. This work is published under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.