Entomology Today (Annapolis, Md., March 24) — The West Nile virus has spread rapidly across the United States, infecting more than 52,000 people since its 1999 emergence. A team of researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has developed a novel statistical model that can predict the most likely areas of mosquitos, and recommend where to place traps. Their study was published this month in the Journal of Medical Entomology. Statistical models don’t have to be specific to West Nile virus. “For instance, this could be useful to decide which parts of a field to monitor for crop pests, which water bodies to monitor for invasive species or where to place pollution monitors to predict a bad air day,” says Rebecca Smith, a professor of pathobiology at Illinois and senior author of the study. “I’d love to see it applied more broadly.” Her team is now creating an app to make it easier for people to use their models on specific spatial sampling problems.
Statistical Model Developed for West Nile Data Has Other Uses
