A conceptional framework of spatial epidemiological research for natural focus diseases, a perspective of disaster science

Abstract Objective : To develop a new spatial epidemiological research framework, which would overcome the problems of multicollinearity among the independent variables and the difficulty for outcome to give an explicit explanation for disease transmission mechanism in the current spatial epidemiological methods. Methods : Comparison of schistosomiasis transmission process with disaster process; Imitation with and import of disaster risk assessment methodology into spatial epidemiological research. Results : A universal spatial epidemiological research framework was presented for the natural focal disease infection risk prediction. This new approach was expected to be extended to the risk assessment of environmental pollution-incurred public health problems. The GIS-based spatialization methods of the factors concerned in the framework were suggested as well. Conclusion : The new established spatial epidemiological framework presented has strong universality and shows many advantages in the field of public health.