School of Built Environment

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Browsing School of Built Environment by Author "Farnaghi, Mahdi"

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    Analysis of spatial co-occurrence between cancer and cardiovascular disease mortality and its spatial variation among the Swedish elderly (2010–2015)
    (Elsevier: Applied Geography, 2020-12) Aturinde, Augustus; Mansourian, Ali; Farnaghi, Mahdi; Pilesjö, Petter; Sundquist, Kristina; Maiga, Gilbert
    CVD and cancer are the two leading causes of death worldwide. Improvement in cancer early detection and treatment has resulted in an increased number of cancer survivors. However, many of the survivors tend to develop CVD often leading to their demise. Conversely, people with pre-existing CVD conditions, especially the elderly, have increased chances of developing cancer and dying from the same. The World Health Organization, consequently, recommends joint management of both diseases. However, in Sweden, as with many other countries, few studies have explored the nature of the associations between the two disease mortalities and their spatial variation at a population level. This study uses correlation, global Moran's index and global bivariate Moran's index to investigate national trends of cancer and CVD crude mortality rates in the Swedish elderly. Spatial scan statistics, spatial overlay and local entropy maps were used to analyse for spatial co-occurrence, local joint spatial clustering and associations in the 2010–2015 cancer and CVD crude mortality rates for the Swedish elderly (65+ years). Mortality data were obtained from the Swedish Healthcare Registry. Our results showed that throughout the years of study, the correlation between cancer and CVD crude mortality rates was averagely positive. Spatial correlation analysis (univariate and bivariate) showed that the contribution of the neighbourhood mortality rates to the observed mortality rates was weak, though significant. From cluster analysis, the cancer and CVD crude mortality rates showed differences in clustering spatial scales with CVD clustering at a smaller scale. Finally, local entropy maps showed that cancer and CVD crude mortality rates were not always related across Sweden, but whenever they were, the relationship was mainly positive and linear. This study contributes to cancer and CVD public health efforts in Sweden by identifying areas where the two causes of death spatially co-occur, and where the two exhibit no spatial overlap. This provides a valuable starting ground for more focused studies to identify local drivers and/or informs coordinated targeted intervention in both causes of death.
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    Spatial analysis of HIV-TB co-clustering in Uganda
    (Springer Link: BMC Infectious Diseases, 2019-07-12) Aturinde, Augustus; Farnaghi, Mahdi; Pilesjö, Petter; Mansourian, Ali
    Tuberculosis (TB) is the leading cause of death for individuals infected with Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Conversely, HIV is the most important risk factor in the progression of TB from the latent to the active status. In order to manage this double epidemic situation, an integrated approach that includes HIV management in TB patients was proposed by the World Health Organization and was implemented in Uganda (one of the countries endemic with both diseases). To enable targeted intervention using the integrated approach, areas with high disease prevalence rates for TB and HIV need to be identified first. However, there is no such study in Uganda, addressing the joint spatial patterns of these two diseases. Methods This study uses global Moran’s index, spatial scan statistics and bivariate global and local Moran’s indices to investigate the geographical clustering patterns of both diseases, as individuals and as combined. The data used are TB and HIV case data for 2015, 2016 and 2017 obtained from the District Health Information Software 2 system, housed and maintained by the Ministry of Health, Uganda. Results Results from this analysis show that while TB and HIV diseases are highly correlated (55–76%), they exhibit relatively different spatial clustering patterns across Uganda. The joint TB/HIV prevalence shows consistent hotspot clusters around districts surrounding Lake Victoria as well as northern Uganda. These two clusters could be linked to the presence of high HIV prevalence among the fishing communities of Lake Victoria and the presence of refugees and internally displaced people camps, respectively. The consistent cold spot observed in eastern Uganda and around Kasese could be explained by low HIV prevalence in communities with circumcision tradition. Conclusions This study makes a significant contribution to TB/HIV public health bodies around Uganda by identifying areas with high joint disease burden, in the light of TB/HIV co-infection. It, thus, provides a valuable starting point for an informed and targeted intervention, as a positive step towards a TB and HIV-AIDS free community.