Estimating spatially-varying dengue force of infection in Ecuador using age-specific case data

Dengue is one of the most prevalent mosquito-borne diseases affecting humans. While it was typically concentrated mostly in areas of the world with tropical climates, with increasing temperature, it has started making its appearance also in the United States. One of the key parameters that epidemiologists use to characterize an infectious disease is the Force of Infection (FOI), the instantaneous rate at which susceptible individuals become infected. Force of Infection is typically represented as a function of age of the individuals and of time (e.g. calendar year). Approaches to estimate FOI from serological data have been presented and discussed in the literature since the 90's. In this talk, we discuss how to estimate FOI from prevalence data. Using prevalence data from multiple areal units in coastal Ecuador, we present a Bayesian hierarchical model to estimate parish-specific FOI's, which in turn allow us to investigate how parish-level characteristics related to urbanization influence dengue's FOI.