Spatial representativeness matters for Climate-Driven Dengue Forecasting

Accurate forecasting of dengue incidence requires statistical models that explicitly accommodate overdispersion, temporal dependence, and delayed environmental forcing. We develop a Bayesian negative binomial dynamic regression model to generate monthly forecasts of dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF) incidence in Kanchanaburi Province, Thailand. Transmission persistence is captured through lagged dengue incidence, while delayed climatic effects are represented using locally observed maximum temperature and relative humidity. Model adequacy and predictive performance are assessed using posterior predictive checks and leave-one-out cross-validation (LOO-CV). The negative binomial specification consistently outperforms Poisson-based alternatives under substantial overdispersion. Importantly, forecasting performance is not determined solely by the strength of marginal climate-dengue associations. Instead, it depends critically on the spatial representativeness of climatic inputs relative to the population at risk. Models informed by climatically representative observations yield more stable and robust out-of-sample forecasts, even when marginal associations are comparatively weaker. These findings underscore the distinction between explanatory association and predictive utility in climate-driven infectious disease models and provide practical guidance for the development of climate-informed dengue early warning systems in endemic settings.