Mapping the Risk of Lyme Disease in MD Using GIS

This phase I project is designed to examine the feasibility of developing large-scale digitalenvironmental data bases that can be used to identify environmental risk factors associated withvector-borne diseases. The project will involve combining computerized geographic information systems,remote sensing and epidemiological analyses to generate predictive risk maps of the most commonvector-borne disease in the US, Lyme disease, for an endemic area in Maryland. The area under studyrepresents more than 6600 square kilometers and the analyses will be performed at a resolution of 1.5hectares. The study has three main aims: to resolve technological issues involved in developing detailed,high resolution environmental data bases for the region; to identify environmental risk factors associatedwith Lyme disease in the region; and to test the predictive capability of the model of disease risk thatis developed from the analysis.