Forest Disturbance and Disease: Exploring the Effects of Tree Harvesting Area on Cryptococcus gattii sensu lato Infection Risk, Vancouver Island, Canada, 1998-2014.
BACKGROUND: The disturbance of colonized trees and soil, such as through forestry activities, has been proposed to disperse soil- and tree-inhabiting fungal pathogens. Cryptococcus gattii sensu lato is one such pathogen that was detected on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada, beginning in 19...
| Publicado en: | Environmental Health Perspectives Vol. 131; no. 7; pp. 077009-1 - 77015 |
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| Autores principales: | , , |
| Formato: | pictorial research tables/charts Journal Article |
| Publicado: |
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
Jul2023
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ccm&AN=169835847&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ccm uiTerm: 169835847 longDbName: CINAHL Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: dissinfo: jinfo: jid: 00916765 3B5 jtl: Environmental Health Perspectives issn: 00916765 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Jul2023 vid: 131 iid: 7 pid: 56539 pub: National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences place: Research Triangle Park, North Carolina artinfo: ui: 169835847 169835847 169835847 10.1289/EHP12396 169835847 ppf: 077009-1 ppct: 6 formats: tig: atl: Forest Disturbance and Disease: Exploring the Effects of Tree Harvesting Area on Cryptococcus gattii sensu lato Infection Risk, Vancouver Island, Canada, 1998-2014. aug: au: Acheson, Emily Sohanna Otterstatter, Michael Galanis, Eleni affil: Department of Geography, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada sug: subj: Cryptococcus Analysis Cryptococcosis Epidemiology Environmental Health Infection Risk Factors Agriculture Evaluation Human Canada Spearman's Rank Correlation Coefficient Descriptive Statistics Soil Geographic Information Systems Public Health Comparative Studies Demography Data Analysis Software Indigenous Canadians ab: BACKGROUND: The disturbance of colonized trees and soil, such as through forestry activities, has been proposed to disperse soil- and tree-inhabiting fungal pathogens. Cryptococcus gattii sensu lato is one such pathogen that was detected on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada, beginning in 1999 and caused human and animal illness. OBJECTIVES: Our aim was to determine if C. gattii s.l. human case incidence on Vancouver Island was correlated with the intensity of landscape-level tree harvesting occurring near human settlement areas. METHODS: We created buffers around human settlement areas with radii increments of 2:5 km, from 2.5 to 20 km, and summed the area of annual tree harvests occurring within each buffer zone. We then performed Spearman rank–order correlation to measure the association between case incidence and annual tree harvest intensity at each radius from 1998 through 2014. RESULTS: The incidence of C. gattii was positively correlated with tree harvesting intensity only at distances of 7:5 km (푟=0.66, 푝=0.004) and 10 km (푟=0.64, 푝=0.005) from human settlement areas. As annual tree harvesting area increased between 1999 and 2003, so did annual C. gattii incidence in humans, before both plateaued around 2002 and decreased after 2007. DISCUSSION: Our findings suggest that tree harvesting plays a role in the spread of C. gattii on Vancouver Island. This may be due to tree cutting or soil disturbance facilitating the aerosolization of spores to increase infection risk. This research also illustrates the contribution that geographic information systems can make to public health research on environmental disturbance and disease outbreaks. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: pictorial research tables/charts Journal Article ougenre: Article language: English refInfo: holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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