We obtained computerised and anonymous notification data (data that does not contain any identifiers such as name, street and house number or Medicare number or other medical insurance number) on locally-acquired dengue cases from January 1993 to June 2012 (approximately 20 years) for the study area from the CDB, Queensland Health. Dengue data included date of notification, age group (e.g., <1, 1–4, 5–9, 10–14 etc.), gender, post code of residence and statistical local area (SLA) (census unit) name. SLA is an Australian Standard Geographical Classification (ASGC) defined area which consists of one or more collection districts (the smallest geographical unit) in Australian census. Therefore, we have analysed the data based on age group.

Most mosquito-borne diseases exhibit spatial and temporal variations in their distribution. Spatial analyses using geostatistics such as spatial autocorrelations, variograms, interpolations, and temporal analyses using chi-squared statistics and time series models are commonly applied to highlight patterns of disease incidence.

The figures are maps showing the dengue incidence rates by SLA over different periods (A: 1993–1997, B: 1998–2002, C: 2003–2007 and D: 2008–2012).