Climate and Health

Climate affects health in a number of ways. These effects may be direct, as with heat stress, or indirect, as with infectious diseases such as malaria and meningitis.

This facility aims to explore and inform users about the climate-health relationship with an emphasis on the seasonal nature of that relationship, where appropriate. This "Climate and Health Resource Room" will begin with a focus on malaria and meningitis in Africa. It is our intention to increase the content of the resource room by including analyses that focus on other diseases and regions, as well those developed at other institutions.

    The Aedes-borne Disease Environmental Suitability (AeDES) Maproom offers interactive maps showing environmental suitability for the conterminous US, Mexico, Central America, northern South America and the Caribbean, for the 1948 to present, at a monthly timescale. It also includes additional information to provide context to the user: infant mortality, population density, and typical seasonality of key climate variables.
    Economic development has played an enormous role in shaping the current global distribution of malaria. Where malaria is not adequately controlled, however, its distribution and seasonality are closely related to seasonal characteristics of the climate.
    The products in this maproom aim to illustrate models of climate suitability for seasonal epidemic meningitis.