Joint Estimation of Relative Risk for Dengue and Zika Infections, Colombia, 2015-2016

We jointly estimated relative risk for dengue and Zika virus disease (Zika) in Colombia, establishing the spatial association between them at the department and city levels for October 2015-December 2016. Cases of dengue and Zika were allocated to the 87 municipalities of 1 department and the 293 census sections of 1 city in Colombia. We fitted 8 hierarchical Bayesian Poisson joint models of relative risk for dengue and Zika, including area- and disease-specific random effects accounting for several spatial patterns of disease risk (clustered or uncorrelated heterogeneity) within and between both diseases. Most of the dengue and Zika high-risk municipalities varied in their risk distribution; those for Zika were in the northern part of the department and dengue in the southern to northeastern parts. At city level, spatially clustered patterns of dengue high-risk census sections indicated Zika high-risk areas. This information can be used to inform public health decision making.