Relative risk estimation of dengue disease in Bandung, Indonesia, using Poisson-gamma and BYM models considering the level of the severity

Abstract

Recently, dengue as the most dangerous disease in the world, needs more attention to be prevented in its transmission. One method that is usually used is through the statistics approach to estimate the relative risks of dengue transmission. The dengue cases of all severity levels spread rapidly in every district in Bandung, Indonesia every month. Therefore, the early-stage known as Dengue Fever (DF), the severe-stage manifested as Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever (DHF) and Dengue Shock Syndrome (DSS) and both stages combined, would be taken into account and investigated in this research. The non-spatial Poisson-gamma model and spatial Besag, York, and Mollie (BYM) model are applied to estimate the relative risks in each district in Bandung every month. This research will use the data in year 2013 from St. Borromeus hospital as one of the reputable hospitals in Bandung. From the results obtained, it can be concluded that the implementation of non-spatial Poisson-gamma and spatial BYM models does not depict a significantly different result in estimating the relative risks of dengue transmission in Bandung. From the Deviance Information Criterion (DIC) diagnostic, it is derived that non-spatial model is better than the spatial model. Therefore, it can be concluded that there is no spatial effect in dengue transmission in Bandung, means that the transmission of dengue disease in Bandung is not affected by neighboring areas. This analysis is also applicable to every stage estimated, both for the early-stage as well as the severe-stage.