Seasonality, a periodic surge in disease incidence corresponding to seasons or other calendar periods, characterizes many infectious diseases of public health importance. The recognition of seasonal patterns in infectious disease occurrence dates back at least as far as the Hippocratic era, but mechanisms underlying seasonality of person-to-person transmitted diseases are not well understood. Improved understanding will enhance understanding of host-pathogen interactions and will improve the accuracy of public health surveillance and forecasting systems. Insight into seasonal disease patterns may be gained through the use of autocorrelation methods or construction of periodograms, while seasonal oscillation of infectious diseases can be easily simulated using simple transmission models. Models demonstrate that small seasonal changes in host or pathogen factors may be sufficient to create large seasonal surges in disease incidence, which may be important particularly in the context of global climate change. Seasonality represents a rich area for future research.

中文翻译：

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传染病的季节性。

季节性是与季节或其他日历时期相对应的疾病发病率的周期性上升，其特征是许多具有公共卫生重要性的传染病。至少在希波克拉底时代，人们才意识到传染病发生时的季节性模式，但是人们对人间传播疾病季节性的潜在机制尚不甚了解。增进了解将增进对宿主-病原体相互作用的了解，并将提高公共卫生监测和预报系统的准确性。可以通过使用自相关方法或构造周期图来了解季节性疾病模式，而可以使用简单的传播模型轻松模拟传染病的季节性振荡。模型表明，宿主或病原体因素的微小季节性变化可能足以造成疾病发病率的大幅季节性上升，这在全球气候变化的背景下尤其重要。季节性代表了未来研究的广阔领域。