An Integrated Modelling Approach to Climate Change and Malaria Vulnerability Assessments

Abstract

Malaria is one of the key research concerns in climate change-health relationships. Numerous risk assessments and modelling studies providing evidence that the transmission range of malaria will expand with rising temperatures resulting in adverse impacts on vulnerable communities. This risk is significant in East Africa whereby current research shows an expansion of malaria into the highland areas due to changes in temperature and rainfall. While there exist multiple lines of evidence for the influence of climate change on malaria and the risk posed to vulnerable communities, there is insufficient understanding of the complexity of factors influencing the spread of the disease at the community level. This paper considers assessment of risk of malaria infection due to climate change, from systems perspective. Drawing upon published literature, we apply systems approach to propose a detailed conceptual model that illustrates causal relationships between the multiple drivers of malaria transmission in line with the current Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recommendations for risk and vulnerability assessments. We suggest that this framework can be applied at a community level using both quantitative and qualitative methods with stakeholder engagement and in conjunction with Bayesian Belief Network to models to: explore how policy and management interventions can reduce the risk of malaria infection and; provide targeted adaptation strategies that incorporates both the scientific and the community perspectives.