Spatial analysis in epidemiological studies of dengue: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Background: Dengue is a serious tropical disease caused by the mosquito-borne dengue virus (DENV). Over the last 50 years, the incidence of dengue fever (DF) and dengue fever and dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF) worldwide has increased by 50-fold and 2.5 billion people currently live in dengue-endemic regions. This study reports a systematic review and meta-analysis of different types of applications offered by spatial analysis in epidemiological studies of dengue. Materials and methods: A comprehensive literature search of Web of Science, SCOPUS, Google Scholar, and PubMed were conducted up to December 2023. A total of three sub-sections, namely spatial analysis of points, spatial analysis of area data, and software programs used for spatial analysis of dengue cases, will be presented in this review. Results: It was found that spatial analysis can effectively support the study of dengue fever and dengue hemorrhagic fever such as to investigate spatial patterns, hotspot, spatial clustering, the spread, transmission of dengue fever and dengue hemorrhagic fever and it’s affecting factors. Conclusion: applications of spatial analysis can provide important information and contribute to development of effective measurements to control and prevent the dengue fever and dengue hemorrhagic fever transmission. Finding in this study provide an insight into how to use different techniques in the study of dengue fever and dengue hemorrhagic fever.