Influence of anthropic changes and environmental characteristics on the occurrence of Tegumentary Leishmaniasis in Montes Claros, Minas Gerais, Brazil, between 2012 and 2019

Abstract

This is an ecological study that investigated the influence of environmental, socioeconomic characteristics and changes in land use and cover on the occurrence of Tegumentary Leishmaniasis (TL) in the city of Montes Claros.The relationships between the number of cases of TL, which occurred between 2012 and 2019, in each census sector and the standardized covariates (Number of properties, altitude, Brazilian Deprivation Index, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), proportion of sector (PS) deforested, PS that underwent other anthropic alterations and unaltered PS) were evaluated with ecological Bayesian Models. Four multivariate models were constructed, with similar quality of adjustments, but Model 1 was the most parsimonious. Model 1 revealed that for each one-unit increase of standard deviation (SD) in the log of the number of properties, at the altitude and root of the deforested PS, corresponds to an increase of 44%, 34% and 24.5% in the number of cases of TL, respectively. The variable NDVI, included in models 3 and 4, was positively associated with the increase in the number of TL cases, being that for each one-unit increase in the NDVI was verified an increase of 21.3% and 20.2% respectively in the models. This study showed that the spatial distribution of TL cases in the city of Montes Claros occurs in a heterogeneous way and our findings support the hypothesis that socio-environmental char­acteristics and deforestation influence the occurrence of this disease in the studied area. Thus, these factors must be considered for the development of disease control strategies.