Geographic incidence of human West Nile virus in northern Virginia, USA, in relation to incidence in birds and variations in urban environment

Previous studies have analyzed the number and location of bird infections with human incidence of West Nile virus (WNV) as well as the effects of environmental and socioeconomic factors on WNV propagation. However, such associations require more quantitative analyses. This study is intended to quantitatively analyze the relationship in eight counties/independent cities in the northern Virginia, based on an integrated analysis of spatially explicit information on precipitation, land cover, infrastructure, and demographic data using Geographical Information Systems, remote sensing, and statistics. Results show that bird infections in years 2002-2003 were closely associated with low to medium level of impervious surface with certain percentage of canopy and precipitation. Environmental and socioeconomic factors such as percentages of impervious surface, canopy, senior population (65 and older), old houses, bird risk areas, and low-income population were important indicators of human WNV risk in 2002. Limited impervious surface with some canopy provides suitable habitats for WNV transmission, where bird-feeding mosquitoes can forage for blood meals from nesting/roosting birds. Certain socioeconomic conditions such as old houses were linked with human infections by providing favorable environmental conditions, i.e., mature trees with abundant canopy and settled storm sewer systems. It should be noted that the current results may be biased toward urban environments, where dead birds were more likely found, and because the sampling efforts for the bird mortality were rather based on local residents' reports than a designed random sampling method. This geospatial study contributes toward better targeting of WNV prevention within the study area. It also provides an example of how geospatial methods and variables may be used in understanding the ecology of human WNV risk for other areas.