Abstract
Drivers are factors that have the potential to directly or indirectly influence the likelihood of infectious diseases emerging or re-emerging. It is likely that an emerging infectious disease (EID) rarely occurs as the result of only one driver; rather, a network of sub-drivers (factors that can influence a driver) are likely to provide conditions that allow a pathogen to (re-)emerge and become established. Data on sub-drivers have therefore been used by modellers to identify hotspots where EIDs may next occur, or to estimate which sub-drivers have the greatest influence on the likelihood of their occurrence. To minimise error and bias when modelling how sub-drivers interact, and thus aid in predicting the likelihood of infectious disease emergence, researchers need good-quality data to describe these sub-drivers. This study assesses the quality of the available data on sub-drivers of West Nile virus against various criteria as a case study. The data were found to be of varying quality with regard to fulfilling the criteria. The characteristic with the lowest score was completeness, i.e. where sufficient data are available to fulfil all the requirements for the model. This is an important characteristic as an incomplete data set could lead to erroneous conclusions being drawn from modelling studies. Thus, the availability of good-quality data is essential to reduce uncertainty when estimating the likelihood of where EID outbreaks may occur and identifying the points on the risk pathway where preventive measures may be taken.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 90-102 |
| Number of pages | 13 |
| Journal | Revue scientifique et technique (International Office of Epizootics) |
| Volume | 42 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 24 May 2023 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This work was supported by the Versatile Emerging Infectious Disease Observatory, funded by the European Union Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under Grant Agreement No. 874735, with additional funding from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, United Kingdom.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 Horigan V., Kelly L., Papa A., Koopmans M.P.G., Sikkema R.S., Koren L.G.H. & Snary E.L.; licensee the World Organisation for Animal Health. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution IGO Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo/legalcode), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. In any reproduction of this article there should not be any suggestion that WOAH or this article endorses any specific organisation, product or service. The use of the WOAH logo is not permitted. This notice should be preserved along with the article's original URL.
