IJERPH, Vol. 18, Pages 10963: Associating Land Cover Changes with Patterns of Incidences of Climate-Sensitive Infections: An Example on Tick-Borne Diseases in the Nordic Area

IJERPH, Vol. 18, Pages 10963: Associating Land Cover Changes with Patterns of Incidences of Climate-Sensitive Infections: An Example on Tick-Borne Diseases in the Nordic Area International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health doi: 10.3390/ijerph182010963 Authors: Didier G. Leibovici Helena Bylund Christer Björkman Nikolay Tokarevich Tomas Thierfelder Birgitta Evengård Shaun Quegan Some of the climate-sensitive infections (CSIs) affecting humans are zoonotic vector-borne diseases, such as Lyme borreliosis (BOR) and tick-borne encephalitis (TBE), mostly linked to various species of ticks as vectors. Due to climate change, the geographical distribution of tick species, their hosts, and the prevalence of pathogens are likely to change. A recent increase in human incidences of these CSIs in the Nordic regions might indicate an expansion of the range of ticks and hosts, with vegetation changes acting as potential predictors linked to habitat suitability. In this paper, we study districts in Fennoscandia and Russia where incidences of BOR and TBE have steadily increased over the 1995–2015 period (defined as ’Well Increasing districts’). This selection is taken as a proxy for increasing the prevalence of tick-borne pathogens due to increased habitat suitability for ticks and hosts, thus simplifying the multiple factors that explain incidence variations. This approach allows vegetation types and strengths of correlation specific to the WI dis...
Source: International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health - Category: Environmental Health Authors: Tags: Article Source Type: research