Abstract

AIM: This study aimed to explore the distribution of neonatal tetanus between provinces of Turkey with the aid of geographic information systems and spatial analyses and to identify infection cluster areas.
METHODS: Analyses performed to report neonatal tetanus cases that recorded by the Ministry of Health belong to 1990-2006 period and to the demographic data belong to 1996-2006 period recorded by Turkish Statistical Institute. Firstly, to detect global variations and trends in the values of smoothed rates over the neighboring provinces, spatial rate smoothing based on spatial moving areas technique is performed by using different weight matrices. Secondly, global and local spatial autocorrelation analyses are performed whether the cases of neonatal tetanus show clustering.
RESULTS: Analyses showed that neonatal tetanus cases are not spatially random and form clusters in the country (Moran’s I: 0.030, p

Key words: Geographic Information System, Epidemiology, Neonatal Tetanus

Article Language: Turkish English