- Email: [email protected]
Special Issue: GEOVET 2010
Spatial and Spatio-temporal Epidemiology 2 (2011) 117–118
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Spatial and Spatio-temporal Epidemiology journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/sste
Editorial
Special Issue: GEOVET 2010 The idea of GEOVET 2010 – a conference on the application of spatial analytical methods used in animal health – began in December 2009. During the 2000s, a series of three conferences (GISVET) had been held to promote the application of geographic information systems in animal health. The use of GIS to address animal health issues was an important topic during the 1990s and through to the mid-2000s: it was a new field of study and initially capacity to undertake GIS-based studies within animal health was limited. However, by 2010 the focus had clearly shifted to analytical approaches with less emphasis on data management and display topics. Thus, GEOVET 2010 was designed to promote the development and application of analytical methods for spatial data in animal health studies. The GEOVET 2010 conference was held at the Faculty of Veterinary Science, The University of Sydney, Australia from December 1 to 3. The conference was preceded by two short courses – Introduction to Geographic Information Systems Using Quantum GIS (Ben Madin and Dr. Jenny Hutchison) and Spatial Methods in Molecular Epidemiology (Dr. Petra Müllner, Dr. Andres Perez and Fernando Mardones) and was followed by another short course, Introduction to Bayesian Disease Mapping (presented by Professor Andrew Lawson). In total, GEOVET 2010 included 7 days of training, presentations, and discussion on spatial methods in animal health and attracted 139 registrations. There were 56 oral presentations of scientific papers, selected by peer-review. Abstracts and most of the presentations are available online (http://sydney.edu.au/vetscience/ research/geovet/). The GEOVET conference was organised into six sessions, each anchored by a keynote address. Papers from five of these keynotes are included in this Special Issue. Two senior papers are also included, presented by members of the GEOVET 2010 Steering Committee (Professors Andrew Lawson and Annette Ersbøll). The final paper is from one of the GEOVET short courses, Spatial Methods in Molecular Epidemiology. Overall, this collection of eight papers presents a review of spatial analysis approaches used in animal health and several specific applications. It is a comprehensive snapshot of the state of spatial analysis in animal health, and what we might expect to see in the future.
1877-5845/$ - see front matter Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.sste.2011.05.001
This Special Issue is introduced by Tim Carpenter’s review of the genesis of spatial epidemiology and the role it plays in the control and prevention of disease. As stated, spatial epidemiology is no longer a novelty – it is a necessity. Kim Stevens and Dirk Pfeiffer review the application of novel spatial modelling methods – including maximum entrophy, the genetic algorithm for rule prediction, and multicriteria decision analysis – to predict potential disease distributions. This highlights the evolving process of evaluating the usefulness of new spatial methods to solve animal health problems. Andres Perez and colleagues describe some of the requirements for global animal disease surveillance and emphasise the design and functionality of tools and methods for visualisation and analysis of data. Highly pathogenic avian influenza in Denmark and Sweden is used as an example of what might be achieved by the integration of new tools into surveillance systems. The theme of disease surveillance is continued with an example of a new companion animal disease surveillance system developed in Australia. This system is unique in that veterinarians enter data that is mapped in near-real time and can be used directly within veterinary practices to highlight to clients infectious disease control. The use of molecular tools and data in animal health is a fast-developing field. Until recently, the spatial and temporal dimension of such data and its analysis has tended to be overlooked. Müllner and colleagues review the emerging field of molecular epidemiology and illustrate how both spatial and molecular information can be integrated to provide new insights into infectious disease transmission. Three very different cases studies – including campylobacteriosis in New Zealand – are used to demonstrate how consideration of spatial and molecular information can facilitate our understanding of infectious diseases in animal health. A specific example of campylobacteriosis in New Zealand is used by Spencer and colleagues to demonstrate the application of Bayesian hierarchical modelling to help identify disease outbreaks. Using notification data, they show that such an approach can improve outbreak detection. The paper by Andrew Lawson and colleagues continues the application of Bayesian methods, in this case modelling the spread of foot-and-mouth disease in northern England during 2001 at a county-level, using a Bayesian Susceptible-Infectious-Removed approach. This approach considers the varying population at-risk during
118
Editorial / Spatial and Spatio-temporal Epidemiology 2 (2011) 117–118
the epidemic. Finally, Ersbøll and Nielsen present an application of methods for describing the spatial changes that occurred during the control of Salmonella Dublin in dairy herds in the Jutland peninsula of Denmark, 2003–2009. This study provided information (including maps) that could be used by decision-makers. We would like to acknowledge the contributions of the GEOVET 2010 scientific committee whom have made this Special Issue possible. The scientific committee (Mark Stevenson, Massey University; Dirk Pfeiffer, Royal Veterinary College; Michael Ward, The University of Sydney), lead by Andres Perez (University of California, Davis) reviewed all abstracts submitted to the conference in a timely manner and with great care and consistency. Reviewers of papers appearing in this Special Issue, many of whom are also authors of manuscripts in this issue, are also thanked for their timely and constructive reviews of each paper.
We hope this Special Issue contributes to promoting current and to guiding future methodological advances in spatial epidemiology. We look forward to another GEOVET conference in 2013.
Michael Ward Faculty of Veterinary Science, The University of Sydney, Camden, NSW 2570, Australia Tel.: +61 2 9351 1607; fax: +61 2 9351 1618 E-mail address: [email protected] Andres Perez Center for Animal Disease Surveillance and Modeling, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Spatial and Spatio-temporal Epidemiology journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/sste
Editorial
Special Issue: GEOVET 2010 The idea of GEOVET 2010 – a conference on the application of spatial analytical methods used in animal health – began in December 2009. During the 2000s, a series of three conferences (GISVET) had been held to promote the application of geographic information systems in animal health. The use of GIS to address animal health issues was an important topic during the 1990s and through to the mid-2000s: it was a new field of study and initially capacity to undertake GIS-based studies within animal health was limited. However, by 2010 the focus had clearly shifted to analytical approaches with less emphasis on data management and display topics. Thus, GEOVET 2010 was designed to promote the development and application of analytical methods for spatial data in animal health studies. The GEOVET 2010 conference was held at the Faculty of Veterinary Science, The University of Sydney, Australia from December 1 to 3. The conference was preceded by two short courses – Introduction to Geographic Information Systems Using Quantum GIS (Ben Madin and Dr. Jenny Hutchison) and Spatial Methods in Molecular Epidemiology (Dr. Petra Müllner, Dr. Andres Perez and Fernando Mardones) and was followed by another short course, Introduction to Bayesian Disease Mapping (presented by Professor Andrew Lawson). In total, GEOVET 2010 included 7 days of training, presentations, and discussion on spatial methods in animal health and attracted 139 registrations. There were 56 oral presentations of scientific papers, selected by peer-review. Abstracts and most of the presentations are available online (http://sydney.edu.au/vetscience/ research/geovet/). The GEOVET conference was organised into six sessions, each anchored by a keynote address. Papers from five of these keynotes are included in this Special Issue. Two senior papers are also included, presented by members of the GEOVET 2010 Steering Committee (Professors Andrew Lawson and Annette Ersbøll). The final paper is from one of the GEOVET short courses, Spatial Methods in Molecular Epidemiology. Overall, this collection of eight papers presents a review of spatial analysis approaches used in animal health and several specific applications. It is a comprehensive snapshot of the state of spatial analysis in animal health, and what we might expect to see in the future.
1877-5845/$ - see front matter Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.sste.2011.05.001
This Special Issue is introduced by Tim Carpenter’s review of the genesis of spatial epidemiology and the role it plays in the control and prevention of disease. As stated, spatial epidemiology is no longer a novelty – it is a necessity. Kim Stevens and Dirk Pfeiffer review the application of novel spatial modelling methods – including maximum entrophy, the genetic algorithm for rule prediction, and multicriteria decision analysis – to predict potential disease distributions. This highlights the evolving process of evaluating the usefulness of new spatial methods to solve animal health problems. Andres Perez and colleagues describe some of the requirements for global animal disease surveillance and emphasise the design and functionality of tools and methods for visualisation and analysis of data. Highly pathogenic avian influenza in Denmark and Sweden is used as an example of what might be achieved by the integration of new tools into surveillance systems. The theme of disease surveillance is continued with an example of a new companion animal disease surveillance system developed in Australia. This system is unique in that veterinarians enter data that is mapped in near-real time and can be used directly within veterinary practices to highlight to clients infectious disease control. The use of molecular tools and data in animal health is a fast-developing field. Until recently, the spatial and temporal dimension of such data and its analysis has tended to be overlooked. Müllner and colleagues review the emerging field of molecular epidemiology and illustrate how both spatial and molecular information can be integrated to provide new insights into infectious disease transmission. Three very different cases studies – including campylobacteriosis in New Zealand – are used to demonstrate how consideration of spatial and molecular information can facilitate our understanding of infectious diseases in animal health. A specific example of campylobacteriosis in New Zealand is used by Spencer and colleagues to demonstrate the application of Bayesian hierarchical modelling to help identify disease outbreaks. Using notification data, they show that such an approach can improve outbreak detection. The paper by Andrew Lawson and colleagues continues the application of Bayesian methods, in this case modelling the spread of foot-and-mouth disease in northern England during 2001 at a county-level, using a Bayesian Susceptible-Infectious-Removed approach. This approach considers the varying population at-risk during
118
Editorial / Spatial and Spatio-temporal Epidemiology 2 (2011) 117–118
the epidemic. Finally, Ersbøll and Nielsen present an application of methods for describing the spatial changes that occurred during the control of Salmonella Dublin in dairy herds in the Jutland peninsula of Denmark, 2003–2009. This study provided information (including maps) that could be used by decision-makers. We would like to acknowledge the contributions of the GEOVET 2010 scientific committee whom have made this Special Issue possible. The scientific committee (Mark Stevenson, Massey University; Dirk Pfeiffer, Royal Veterinary College; Michael Ward, The University of Sydney), lead by Andres Perez (University of California, Davis) reviewed all abstracts submitted to the conference in a timely manner and with great care and consistency. Reviewers of papers appearing in this Special Issue, many of whom are also authors of manuscripts in this issue, are also thanked for their timely and constructive reviews of each paper.
We hope this Special Issue contributes to promoting current and to guiding future methodological advances in spatial epidemiology. We look forward to another GEOVET conference in 2013.
Michael Ward Faculty of Veterinary Science, The University of Sydney, Camden, NSW 2570, Australia Tel.: +61 2 9351 1607; fax: +61 2 9351 1618 E-mail address: [email protected] Andres Perez Center for Animal Disease Surveillance and Modeling, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA