Modelling spatial relationship between climatic conditions and annual parasite incidence of malaria in southern part of Sistan&Balouchistan Province of Iran using spatial statistic models

ObjectiveTo model spatial relationship between climatic conditions and annual parasite incidence (API) of malaria in southern part of Sistan&Balouchistan Province of Iran using spatial statistic models.MethodsA geographical weighted regression model was applied for predicting API by 3 climatic factors in order to model the spatial API of malaria in Sistan&Baluchistan Province of Iran.ResultsThe results indicated that most important climatic factor for explaining API in Sistan&Baluchistan was annual rainfall being of more importance in southern part of study area such as Chabahar, and Nikshar. The temperature and relative humidity are of the second and third priority respectively. The importance of these two climatic factors is higher in northern part of the studied region. The spatial autocorrelation (Moran's I) for standard residual of applied geographical weighted regression model is −0.022 which indicated no spatial patterns.ConclusionsThis model explained only 0.51 of API spatial variation (R²=0.51). Thus, the non-climatic factors such as socioeconomic, lifestyle and the neighborhood position of this province with Afghanistan, and Pakistan also should be considered in epidemiological survey of malaria in Sistan&Baluchistan.