Modelling the effects of weather and climate on malaria distributions in West Africa

Malaria Journal

Research

Monica C Jackson¹  Ali Arab²  Cezar Kongoli³ 

[1] Department of Mathematics and Statistics, American University, 20016, Washington, DC, USA;Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Georgetown University, 20057, Washington, DC, USA;Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center (ESSIC), University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA;National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Environmental Satellite Data and Information Service (NESDIS), College Park, MD, USA;

关键词: Malaria;    Malaria Incidence;    Mosquito Population;    Deviance Information Criterion;    Markov Chain Monte Carlo Method;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1475-2875-13-126

 received in 2013-11-01, accepted in 2014-03-22,  发布年份 2014

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundMalaria is a leading cause of mortality worldwide. There is currently conflicting data and interpretation on how variability in climate factors affects the incidence of malaria. This study presents a hierarchical Bayesian modelling framework for the analysis of malaria versus climate factors in West Africa.MethodsThe hierarchical Bayesian framework takes into account spatiotemporal dependencies, and in this paper is applied to annual malaria and climate data from ten West African countries (Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Liberia, Mali, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo) during the period 1996-2006.ResultsResults show a statistically significant correspondence between malaria rates and the climate variables considered. The two most important climate factors are found to be average annual temperature and total annual precipitation, and they show negative association with malaria incidence.ConclusionsThis modelling framework provides a useful approach for studying the impact of climate variability on the spread of malaria and may help to resolve some conflicting interpretations in the literature.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© Arab et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2014