Valley Fever Public Health Decision Support System Based on Climate and Environmental Changes

Valley Fever (coccidioidomycosis) is a disease endemic to arid regions in the Western Hemisphere, and is caused by the soil-dwelling fungi, Coccidioides immitis and Coccidioides posadasii. Arizona is currently experiencing an epidemic with well over 5000 cases in 2006. This presentation describes the development of a decision-support system for Arizona that capitalizes on the research group's latest research results linking precipitation and other environmental conditions (e.g., atmospheric dust) and seasonal coccidioidomycosis changes. The study team is collaborating with the Arizona Department of Health Services to further develop understanding of climate and environmental controls on coccidioidomycosis, and to set up seasonal models and associated databases to anticipate coccidioidomycosis outbreaks and improve public health actions to mitigate them. These decision-support tools will describe the climate contribution to incidence and to epidemics, specify the covariability of atmospheric dust levels and coccidioidomycosis incidence, make seasonal forecasts of disease incidence by geographic area, provide satellite-derived spatial data on surface moisture and derived relationships to disease incidence, and satellite-derived maps of land cover change and disturbance.