Data-driven exploration of ‘spatial pattern-time process-driving forces’ associations of SARS epidemic in Beijing, China

Wang, Jin-Feng; Christakos, George; Han, Wei-Guo; Meng, Bin

Inference concerning the evolution of spatial SARS clusters was based on the rule Figure 1 illustrates that the larger spatial clusters C(s) were controlled by the urban traffic loops T(s), i.e. a proxy of the macro spatial proximity, T(t), the influence of which to the epidemic is detectable and changes with time ( Fig. 3b and c). The smaller spatial clusters in Fig. 1 are randomly distributed over space, which is consistent with the spatial distributions of the population P and the number of doctors D, the two factors playing a significant role in the epidemic decline period (Fig. 3d -f ). We concluded that the larger spatial clusters were dominant during the peak epidemic period and the smaller ones became more active during the decline period.