Research on establishing the risk assessment index system of imported and local transmission of dengue fever into China from Association of Southeast Asian Nations countries, based on the Delphi method

  Objective  To establish an index system for the risk assessment of imported dengue fever from Association of Southeast Asian Nations countries and its secondary transmission in China and facilitate the early warning and rapid response of imported dengue fever.

  Methods  By literature review and expert consultation, the risk assessment index pool of imported dengue fever and its secondary transmission in China was established, and based on which, a questionnaire was developed. Delphi method was used to invite 31 experts for consultation through email. The experts complete the questionnaire. According to the experts’ importance score, judge basis and familiarity to candidate index, the positive coefficient, authority coefficient and the coordination coefficient were calculated, the selected indexes and their weight were determined.

  Results  The risk assessment index system of imported dengue fever and its secondary transmission in China consisted of 4 first-level indexes, 11 second-level indexes and 36 third-level indexes. In the two rounds of expert consultation, the positive coefficient of experts was 100% and 93.55% respectively. The expert authority coefficient of each index was between 0.76 and 0.86 (full score: 1). The arithmetic mean of the importance score (AMIS) of the first-level indexes had a range of 6.21–9.59 (full score: 10), and the range of coefficient of variation (CV) was 0.08–0.26. The AMIS of the second-level indexes had a range of 6.55–9.00 with CV range of 0.11–0.28. The AMIS of the three-level indexes ranged from 6.41 to 9.66 with CV ranged from 0.09 to 0.40. The coordination coefficient was 0.381 (P<0.01) for the overall index, 0.665 (P<0.01) for the first-level indexes, 0.438 (P<0.01) for the second-level indexes, and 0.351 (P<0.01) for the third-level indexes respectively.

  Conclusion  A risk assessment index system of imported dengue fever and its secondary transmission in China has been established, and the result of the system is reliable, which can provide important basis to develop a tool to evaluate the risk of dengue fever outbreak.