Volume 18, Number 7—July 2012
Dispatch
Changing Socioeconomic Indicators of Human Plague, New Mexico, USA
, Rebecca J. Eisen, Kiersten J. Kugeler, Paul Ettestad, Pamela J. Reynolds, Ted Brown, Russell E. Enscore, James Cheek, Rudy Bueno, Joseph Targhetta, John A. Montenieri, and Kenneth L. Gage
Table 1
Characteristics of census block groups considered in analysis for human plague on the basis of 1980, 1990, and 2000 US Census data, New Mexico, USA*
| Variable | 1976–1985 |
1986–1995 |
1996–2007 |
|||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Positive, n = 64 | Negative, n = 405 | Positive, n = 29 | Negative, n = 430 | Positive, n = 20 | Negative, n = 434 | |||
| Population density/km2 | 4.34 (11.54) | 22.68 (264.48)† | 8.31 (34.66) | 23.46 (238.31) | 13.70 (31.82) | 25.96 (267.56) | ||
| Housing density/km2 | 1.46 (4.18) | 8.38 (107.56)† | 3.33 (12.57) | 9.33 (95.91) | 5.87 (12.13) | 11.30 (107.09) | ||
| Poverty rate‡ | 0.34 (0.23) | 0.22 (0.23)§ | 0.32 (0.42) | 0.28 (0.23) | 0.16 (0.18) | 0.24 (0.24)¶ | ||
| % Housing units | ||||||||
| Vacant | 12.0 (8.84) | 10.8 (7.09) | 14.0 (15.54) | 14.5 (16.34) | 8.4 (10.77) | 10.7 (18.46) | ||
| Rural farms | 2.1 (5.19) | 1.3 (6.03)§ | 0 (1.18) | 0 (0.66) | 0 (1.02) | 0 (1.24) | ||
| Occupied, incomplete plumbing# | 8.6 (15.93) | 2.5 (6.22)† | 7.5 (30.57) | 2.3 (9.21)§ | 1.5 (5.77) | 1.1 (4.47) | ||
| Occupied mobile homes | 16.2 (5.89) | 15.5 (17.88) | 17.4 (23.31) | 23.7 (20.25) | 17.1 (13.19) | 18.4 (24.21) | ||
| Built before 1940 | 16.0 (14.98) | 11.4 (16.92)§ | 6.7 (16.81) | 5.0 (15.67) | 3.7 (10.38) | 3.8 (11.72) | ||
| >40 y old | 16.0 (14.98) | 11.4 (16.92)§ | 14.3 (20.38) | 11.1 (22.71) | 8.3 (22.42) | 15.8 (25.83) | ||
| <5 y old | 20.6 (11.06) | 21.7 (19.65) | 17.1 (21.42) | 13.6 (13.97) | 21.5 (15.43) | 14.5 (14.86)§ | ||
| Heated with wood fuel | 18.5 (20.80) | 6.8 (16.73)† | 31.56 (34.65) | 13.0 (31.99)† | 16.9 (21.79) | 6.8 (20.91)¶ | ||
| Occupied by >6 persons | 9.5 (6.28) | 7.1 (4.89)§ | 5.4 (11.97) | 5.0 (6.90) | 3.3 (4.48) | 3.5 (5.94) | ||
| Household income** | $28,477 ($11,544) | $30,190 ($16,367)¶ | $29,644 ($30,784) | $28,822 ($16,775) | $44,098 ($30,563) | $31,323 ($18,541)§ | ||
| Value of homes** | $85,280 ($67,672) | $95,791 ($78,706) | $83,614 ($104,492) | $80,237 ($75,854) | $132,350 ($90,050) | $84,300 ($90,400)¶ | ||
| Year housing unit built | NA | NA | 1972 (9) | 1974 (11) | 1987 (13) | 1979 (11)§ | ||
| % Census block group area | ||||||||
| Ecotone habitat†† | 2.8 (11.36) | 0 (3.34)† | 5.5 (13.44) | 0 (4.33)† | 10.7 (23.28) | 0 (4.63)† | ||
| Water | 0.60 (0.45) | 0.56 (0.83) | 0.60 (0.31) | 0.56 (0.71) | 0.43 (0.33) | 0.58 (0.67) | ||
*Values are medians (interquartile ranges) for plague-positive and negative census block groups in the respective time frames. Boldface indicates variables significantly different between positive and negative groups. NA, not available.
†p≤0.001, by Wilcoxon rank sum test.
‡Defined by the US Census Bureau as the proportion of the population living near or below the federal poverty line, which is based on household income adjusted for number of household members. The definition of the federal poverty line changed between the 1980 and 1990 censuses. Therefore, rates are not directly comparable across decennials.
§p≤0.01, by Wilcoxon rank sum test.
¶p≤0.05 by Wilcoxon rank sum test.
#Defined by the US Census Bureau as lacking >1 of the following: hot and cold piped water, a flush toilet, and a bathtub or shower. Values are not directly comparable among censuses. In 1980, a housing unit was considered to have complete plumbing only if plumbing fixtures were for exclusive for the residents of that unit. In 1990, the requirement of exclusive use was dropped.
**In US year 2000–adjusted dollars, rounded to the nearest dollar.
††Identified as the convergence of the Rocky Mountain/Great Basin open and closed coniferous woodland habitats by Eisen et al. (6).
References
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Summary of notifiable diseases—United States, 2009. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 2011;58:1–100.PubMedGoogle Scholar
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Human plague—four states, 2006. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 2006;55:940–3.PubMedGoogle Scholar
- Craven RB, Maupin GO, Beard ML, Quan TJ, Barnes AM. Reported cases of human plague infections in the United States, 1970–1991. J Med Entomol. 1993;30:758–61.PubMedGoogle Scholar
- Gage KL, Kosoy MY. Natural history of plague: perspectives from more than a century of research. Annu Rev Entomol. 2005;50:505–28. DOIPubMedGoogle Scholar
- Kartman L. Historical and oecological observations on plague in the United States. Trop Geogr Med. 1970;22:257–75.PubMedGoogle Scholar
- Eisen RJ, Reynolds PJ, Ettestad P, Brown T, Enscore RE, Biggerstaff BJ, Residence-linked human plague in New Mexico: a habitat-suitability model. Am J Trop Med Hyg. 2007;77:121–5.PubMedGoogle Scholar
- Barnes AM. Surveillance and control of bubonic plague in the united States. Symposium of the Zoological Society of London. 1981;50:237–70.
- Mann JM, Martone WJ, Boyce JM, Kaufmann AF, Barnes AM, Weber NS. Endemic human plague in New Mexico: risk factors associated with infection. J Infect Dis. 1979;140:397–401. DOIPubMedGoogle Scholar
- Kulldorff M. A spatial scan statistic. Comm Statist Theory Methods. 1997;26:1481–96. DOIGoogle Scholar
- Kulldorff M. Information Management Services, Inc., 2011. SaTScan™ v9.1.1: software for the spatial and space-time scan statistics [cited 2012 Apr 6]. www.satscan.org
- Enscore RE, Biggerstaff BJ, Brown TL, Fulgham RF, Reynolds PJ, Engelthaler DM, Modeling relationships between climate and the frequency of human plague cases in the southwestern United States, 1960–1997. Am J Trop Med Hyg. 2002;66:186–96.PubMedGoogle Scholar
1Current affiliation: Marshfield Clinic Research Foundation, Marshfield, Wisconsin, USA.