Assessing the influencing factors of dengue fever in Chinese mainland based on causal analysis

Previous studies have identified various factors affecting dengue fever, but most focus on correlations within specific regions, not establishing causality. This study uses Convergent Cross Mapping (CCM) to explore the causal relationships between nine meteorological factors and reported dengue fever cases in 14 Chinese provinces with the highest incidence. Results show that temperature and pressure have causal links with case numbers in more provinces. In Guangdong, which has the most reported cases, Partial Cross Mapping (PCM) reveals a direct causal relationship only between GDP and reported dengue fever cases, while meteorological factors influence dengue fever via their impact on mosquito populations. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) from 30 provinces further confirms the importance of temperature and pressure. Given the significant negative correlation between temperature and pressure, separate models were developed for each province using the Distributed Lag Nonlinear Model (DLNM) combined with the Generalized Additive Model (GAM), with GDP as a covariate. The results indicate that the Relative Risk (RR) increases significantly under high temperatures and low pressure within a shorter lag period. GDP significantly promotes case numbers in all provinces.