Evaluation of spatial and non-spatial factors on tuberculosis using geospatial information system and fuzzy logic

Abstract

Tuberculosis is a deadly infectious disease that has not been eradicated yet. The prevalence of this disease is still very high in some parts of the world, so it is considered a deadly disease. Iran is one of the countries which has not yet achieved the ability to eliminate this disease. The prevalence of tuberculosis is relatively higher in some provinces than in the other ones. Sistan and Baluchestan is the province with high rates of tuberculosis. In this paper, the factors affecting tuberculosis are modeled in Sistan and Baluchestan province using Geospatial Information Systems (GIS) and FL. This research contains two general analyzes. In the first analysis, three different scenarios of FL rules are presented. The first two scenarios examine spatial and non-spatial factors respectively. The third scenario also examines the combination of spatial and non-spatial factors simultaneously. As a result, the effect of spatial and non-spatial factors on tuberculosis is obtained. In the second analysis, a spatial scatter density map of tuberculosis is produced according to spatial data. This research reveals that the effects of spatial and non-spatial factors on tuberculosis are 57 % and 43 %, respectively. By comparing the results with samplings, the scatter rate map of tuberculosis is obtained with an accuracy of 71 %.