Title
Unveiling Spatial Epidemiology Of Hiv With Mobile Phone Data
Abstract
An increasing amount of geo-referenced mobile phone data enables the identification of behavioral patterns, habits and movements of people. With this data, we can extract the knowledge potentially useful for many applications including the one tackled in this study - understanding spatial variation of epidemics. We explored the datasets collected by a cell phone service provider and linked them to spatial HIV prevalence rates estimated from publicly available surveys. For that purpose, 224 features were extracted from mobility and connectivity traces and related to the level of HIV epidemic in 50 Ivory Coast departments. By means of regression models, we evaluated predictive ability of extracted features. Several models predicted HIV prevalence that are highly correlated (>0.7) with actual values. Through contribution analysis we identified key elements that correlate with the rate of infections and could serve as a proxy for epidemic monitoring. Our findings indicate that night connectivity and activity, spatial area covered by users and overall migrations are strongly linked to HIV. By visualizing the communication and mobility flows, we strived to explain the spatial structure of epidemics. We discovered that strong ties and hubs in communication and mobility align with HIV hot spots.
Year
DOI
Venue
2015
10.1038/srep19342
SCIENTIFIC REPORTS
Field
DocType
Volume
Data science,Behavioral pattern,Regression analysis,Service provider,Spatial epidemiology,Phone,Spatial variability,Mobile phone,Mathematics,Prevalence
Journal
6
Issue
ISSN
Citations 
1
2045-2322
2
PageRank 
References 
Authors
0.39
21
4
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Sanja Brdar120.39
Katarina Gavric221.06
Dubravko Culibrk327920.02
Vladimir S. Crnojevic418617.82