Correlation-Weighted Communicability Curvature as a Structural Driver of Dengue Spread: A Bayesian Spatial Analysis of Recife (2015-2024)

Abstract

We investigate whether the structural connectivity of urban road networks helps explain dengue incidence in Recife, Brazil (2015--2024). For each neighborhood, we compute the average \emph{communicability curvature}, a graph-theoretic measure capturing the ability of a locality to influence others through multiple network paths. We integrate this metric into Negative Binomial models, fixed-effects regressions, SAR/SAC spatial models, and a hierarchical INLA/BYM2 specification. Across all frameworks, curvature is the strongest and most stable predictor of dengue risk. In the BYM2 model, the structured spatial component collapses ($φ\approx 0$), indicating that functional network connectivity explains nearly all spatial dependence typically attributed to adjacency-based CAR terms. The results show that dengue spread in Recife is driven less by geographic contiguity and more by network-mediated structural flows.