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. 2017 Jul 24;12(7):e0182028.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0182028. eCollection 2017.

A Bayesian spatio-temporal model for forecasting Anaplasma species seroprevalence in domestic dogs within the contiguous United States

Yan Liu  1 , Stella C Watson  1 , Jenna R Gettings  1 , Robert B Lund  1 , Shila K Nordone  2 , Michael J Yabsley  3 , Christopher S McMahan  1
Affiliations

A Bayesian spatio-temporal model for forecasting Anaplasma species seroprevalence in domestic dogs within the contiguous United States

Yan Liu et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

This paper forecasts the 2016 canine Anaplasma spp. seroprevalence in the United States from eight climate, geographic and societal factors. The forecast's construction and an assessment of its performance are described. The forecast is based on a spatial-temporal conditional autoregressive model fitted to over 11 million Anaplasma spp. seroprevalence test results for dogs conducted in the 48 contiguous United States during 2011-2015. The forecast uses county-level data on eight predictive factors, including annual temperature, precipitation, relative humidity, county elevation, forestation coverage, surface water coverage, population density and median household income. Non-static factors are extrapolated into the forthcoming year with various statistical methods. The fitted model and factor extrapolations are used to estimate next year's regional prevalence. The correlation between the observed and model-estimated county-by-county Anaplasma spp. seroprevalence for the five-year period 2011-2015 is 0.902, demonstrating reasonable model accuracy. The weighted correlation (accounting for different sample sizes) between 2015 observed and forecasted county-by-county Anaplasma spp. seroprevalence is 0.987, exhibiting that the proposed approach can be used to accurately forecast Anaplasma spp. seroprevalence. The forecast presented herein can a priori alert veterinarians to areas expected to see Anaplasma spp. seroprevalence beyond the accepted endemic range. The proposed methods may prove useful for forecasting other diseases.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Empirical county-by-county Anaplasma spp. seroprevalence aggregated over 2011-2015.
Fig 2
Fig 2. Baseline map of Anaplasma spp. seroprevalence.
Fig 3
Fig 3. Aggregated model-based estimates of Anaplasma spp. seroprevalence.
Fig 4
Fig 4. 2015 forecasted Anaplasma spp. seroprevalence.
Fig 5
Fig 5. 2015 observed Anaplasma spp. seroprevalence.
Fig 6
Fig 6. 2016 forecasted Anaplasma spp. seroprevalence.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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