Impact of environmental factors on the spread of dengue fever in the United States of America (USA)

Dengue fever has been increasing in recent decades and has become a key concern for the health sector in the USA. This study aims to investigate the impact of meteorological conditions on the incidence of dengue fever in the USA. This research based on the evidence of weekly dengue cases from January 2015 to December 2021 in 56 regions in the USA. Besides descriptive statistics, association was examined between dengue fever incidence and specific environmental factors. A number of multivariate generalized linear model (GLM) for count data was applied to discover the elements that substantially influence the spread of dengue sickness. The hurdle negative binomial regression (NBR) model was considered the final model based on the AIC and BIC criteria. This study showed that temperature, humidity, rainfall, and surface pressure are positively correlated with dengue cases. However, the sky clearance index has negative relationships with dengue cases. The hurdle-NBR model revealed that humidity, temperature, and air-pressure are more prone to dengue cases. In contrast, precipitation, wind speed, and sky clearance index are negatively associated with dengue incidence. The findings of this research impart crucial information about meteorological parameters that could increase the risk of dengue incidence.