Speaker:
Dr. Robert Lund
Title:
Forecasting the Annual Prevalence of some Common US Canine Diseases
Synopsis:
This talks will examine the Companion Animal Parasite Council’s big-data efforts in forecasting the annual prevalence of Lyme, Heartworm, Anaplasmosis, and Ehrlichiosis within the continental United States. This work, which began about four years ago, seeks to predict the coming year’s prevalence of each disease on a county-by-county basis across the United States. The methods are based on a massive data set, compiled since 2011, that contains the results of millions of annual tests for each disease as reported by various veterinarians across the US. The talk discusses baseline hazard rate construction (construction of a spatial map depicting an average year’s prevalence), the factors the forecasts are based on (temperature, precipitation, income, mosquito presence, etc.), and the mathematical techniques (logistic regression) needed to perform the statistical analyses. Forecast maps for 2014 and 2015 will be given; forecasts for 2014 will be compared with 2014’s observations.
Broadcast Sites:
*CAL – Holy Cross – Rm G020A
CAL – Richmond Road Diagnostic Treatment Centre – Rm 3005
EDM – Cross Cancer – Rm 4134
EDM – Sun Life – Rm 1404