| Summary: | Amid profound climate change, incidence of dengue fever continues to rise and expand in distribution
across the world. Here, we analysed dengue fever in three coastal departments of Peru which have
recently experienced public health emergencies during the worst dengue crises in Latin American
history. We developed a climate-based spatiotemporal modelling framework to model monthly incidence
of new dengue cases in Piura, Tumbes, and Lambayeque over 140 months from 2010 to 2021. The
framework enabled accurate description of in-sample and out-of-sample dengue incidence trends across
the departments, as well as the characterisation of the timing, structure, and intensity of climatic
relationships with human dengue incidence. In terms of dengue incidence rate (DIR) risk factors,
we inferred non-linear and delayed effects of greater monthly mean maximum temperatures, extreme
precipitation, sustained drought conditions, and extremes of a Peruvian-specific indicator of the El Niño
Southern Oscillation. Building on our model-based understanding of climatic influences, we performed
climate-model-based forecasting of dengue incidence across 2018 to 2021 with a forecast horizon of one
month. Our framework enabled representative, reliable forecasts of future dengue outbreaks, including
correct classification of 100% of all future outbreaks with DIR ≥ 50 (or 150) per 100,000, whilst
retaining relatively low probability of 0.12 (0.05) for false alarms. Therefore, our model framework and
analysis may be used by public health authorities to i) understand climatic drivers of dengue incidence,
and ii) alongside our forecasts, to mitigate impacts of dengue outbreaks and potential public health
emergencies by informing early warning systems and deployment of vector control resources.
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