Do socioeconomic factors drive Aedes mosquito vectors and their arboviral diseases? A systematic review of dengue, chikungunya, yellow fever, and Zika Virus

Abstract

As the threat of arboviral diseases continues to escalate worldwide, the question of, “What types of human communities are at the greatest risk of infection?” persists as a key gap in the existing knowledge of arboviral diseases transmission dynamics. Here, we comprehensively review the existing literature on the socioeconomic drivers of the most common Aedes mosquito-borne diseases and Aedes mosquito presence/abundance. We reviewed a total of 182 studies on dengue viruses (DENV), chikungunya virus (CHIKV), yellow fever virus (YFVV), Zika virus (ZIKV), and presence of Aedes mosquito vectors. In general, associations between socioeconomic conditions and both Aedes -borne diseases and Aedes mosquitoes are highly variable and often location-specific. Although 50% to 60% of studies found greater presence or prevalence of disease or vectors in areas with lower socioeconomic status, approximately half of the remaining studies found either positive or null associations. We discuss the possible causes of this lack of conclusiveness as well as the implications it holds for future research and prevention efforts.

First report of epidemic dengue fever and malaria co-infections among internally displaced persons in humanitarian camps of North Darfur, Sudan

“…More importantly, the frequency of arboviral diseases outbreaks is steadily increasing, with recent epidemics of arboviruses emerging and re-emerging throughout the country, including the Rift Valley fever in the North (Ahmed et al, 2020d), Chikungunya in the East (Ahmed et al, 2020b), Dengue, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever (CCHF), and West Nile virus in the West of the country (Ahmed et al, 2019a). Although the current evidence does not show a positive association between the Aedesborne arboviral diseases and socioeconomic status (Whiteman et al, 2020), some studies have suggested a link between dengue transmission and some socioeconomic risk factors, namely living in densely populated houses, housing conditions, and the use and storage conditions of water (Ahmed et al, 2019a;Elaagip et al, 2020;Ahmed et al, 2019b).…”

Mosquito Vector Production across Socio-Economic Divides in Baton Rouge, Louisiana

“…While previous studies have addressed the role of socio-economic disparities and mosquito-borne disease risk, the results of these studies are inconclusive and often demonstrate non-linear relationships [ 1 , 5 ]. Therefore, the relationships between poverty and mosquito disease risk may be context dependent and vary in relation to a number of local factors such as climate variability.…”

Seropositivity and history of hospitalisation for dengue in relation to anthropometric indices among Colombian children and adults

“…Selection of confounders was driven primarily by prior causal knowledge of independent predictors of arboviral infection and correlates of anthropometric exposures that were not their consequence. These included sex, age and SES indicators [ 28 ]. We favoured those indicators that significantly predicted outcomes in this population at P < 0.05.…”