title: Spatial patterns of malaria in a land reform colonization project, Juruena municipality, Mato Grosso, Brazil.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  In Brazil, 99% of malaria cases are concentrated in the Amazon, and malaria's spatial distribution is commonly associated with socio-environmental conditions on a fine landscape scale. In this study, the spatial patterns of malaria and its determinants in a rural settlement of the Brazilian agricultural reform programme called "Vale do Amanhecer" in the northern Mato Grosso state were analysed.
  
  
  METHODS
  In a fine-scaled, exploratory ecological study, geocoded notification forms corresponding to malaria cases from 2005 were compared with spectral indices, such as the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and the third component of the Tasseled Cap Transformation (TC_3) and thematic layers, derived from the visual interpretation of multispectral TM-Landsat 5 imagery and the application of GIS distance operators.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Of a total of 336 malaria cases, 102 (30.36%) were caused by Plasmodium falciparum and 174 (51.79%) by Plasmodium vivax. Of all the cases, 37.6% (133 cases) were from residents of a unique road. In total, 276 cases were reported for the southern part of the settlement, where the population density is higher, with notification rates higher than 10 cases per household. The local landscape mostly consists of open areas (38.79 km²). Training forest occupied 27.34 km² and midsize vegetation 7.01 km². Most domiciles with more than five notified malaria cases were located near areas with high NDVI values. Most domiciles (41.78%) and malaria cases (44.94%) were concentrated in areas with intermediate values of the TC_3, a spectral index representing surface and vegetation humidity.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Environmental factors and their alteration are associated with the occurrence and spatial distribution of malaria cases in rural settlements.
authors.affiliation: Epidemiological Surveillance, Health Secretary of Mato Grosso. Rua D, Political Administrative Center, Cuiabá, Mato Grosso State, 78.050-970, Brazil.
authors.forename: Elaine Cristina
authors.initials: EC
authors.lastname: de Oliveira
authors.forename: Emerson Soares
authors.initials: ES
authors.lastname: dos Santos
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Zeilhofer
authors.forename: Reinaldo
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Souza-Santos
authors.forename: Marina
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Atanaka-Santos
mesh_terms: D001938:Brazil / Q000453:epidemiology; D005260:Female; D005843:Geography; D006802:Human Activities; D006801:Humans; D016778:Malaria, Falciparum / Q000453:epidemiology*; D016780:Malaria, Vivax / Q000453:epidemiology*; D008297:Male; D010963:Plasmodium falciparum / Q000302:isolation & purification; D010966:Plasmodium vivax / Q000302:isolation & purification