Dynamics of respiratory infectious diseases under rapid urbanization and COVID-19 pandemic in the subcenter of Beijing during 2014-2022

Chang-Yu Guo; Wan-Xue Zhang; Yi-Guo Zhou; Shan-Shan Zhang; Lu Xi; Ran-Ran Zheng; Juan Du; Jianming Zhang; Yan Cui; Qing-Bin Lu

doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e29987

Dynamics of respiratory infectious diseases under rapid urbanization and COVID-19 pandemic in the subcenter of Beijing during 2014-2022

Heliyon. 2024 Apr 20;10(9):e29987. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e29987. eCollection 2024 May 15.

Authors

Chang-Yu Guo^{1

2}, Wan-Xue Zhang^{1

2}, Yi-Guo Zhou^{1

3}, Shan-Shan Zhang^{1

4}, Lu Xi⁵, Ran-Ran Zheng⁵, Juan Du^{1

2}, Jianming Zhang⁵, Yan Cui⁵, Qing-Bin Lu^{1

2

3

4

6}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Laboratorial Science and Technology, Vaccine Research Center, School of Public Health, Peking University, Beijing, China.
² Center for Infectious Disease and Policy Research & Global Health and Infectious Diseases Group, Peking University, Beijing, China.
³ Department of Health Policy and Management, School of Public Health, Peking University, Beijing, China.
⁴ Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Peking University, Beijing, China.
⁵ Institute for Infectious Diseases and Endemic Diseases Prevention and Control, Beijing Tongzhou Center for Diseases Prevention and Control, Beijing, China.
⁶ Key Laboratory of Epidemiology of Major Diseases (Peking University), Ministry of Education, Beijing, China.

Abstract

Objective: The study analyzed the impact of urbanization on epidemiological characteristics of respiratory infectious disease in Tongzhou District, Beijing during 2014-2022 to provide reference for prevention and control priorities of respiratory infectious diseases during the innovative urbanization process in China.

Methods: The incidence data of notifiable respiratory infectious diseases (NRIDs) in Tongzhou Beijing during 2014-2022 were summarized. The trend of incidence rate was analyzed by Joinpoint regression model, and entropy method was performed to construct the comprehensive index of urbanization (CIU) and generalized linear model was used to analyze the influence of CIU on the incidence rate of respiratory infectious diseases.

Results: Totally 72616 NRIDs cases were reported in Tongzhou District during 2014-2022, and the incidence rate of NRIDs was higher during 2017-2019 (153/100 000) than during 2014-2016 (930/100 000) and during 2020-2022 (371/100 000), respectively (both P < 0.001). The CIU constantly increased with slight fluctuation in 2016 and 2018, respectively. The incidence rate of NRIDs showed an increase along with the CIU during 2014-2019 (r = 0.95, P = 0.004), while the incidence rate's tendency was interrupted by COVID-19 during 2020 with slight decrease in 2020-2021 and rebounded in 2022. For the patients aged <15 years, the incidence rate of NRIDs revealed a very sharp rise at the urbanization period without COVID-19 pandemic compared with that under pre-urbanization period (RR = 7.93, 95 % CI 7.63-8.24), and dropped off to the similar level as of pre-urbanization period when COVID-19 pandemic spread.

Conclusions: Urbanization process may increase the incidence of NRIDs but constrained by COVID-19. Certain measures should be taken to prevent and control the effects by urbanization process, such as good natural environment with less population density, ecological environment with good air quality, promoted hand hygiene, mask wearing, keeping interpersonal distance, vaccination, media publicity for NRIDs' prevention and control.

Keywords: COVID-19; Infectious diseases; Respiratory infectious diseases; Urbanization.