Title: A statistical model for assessing the relationship between meteorological variables and the incidence of Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax in a Peruvian endemic area

Authors: Palmira Ventosilla, Erick Huarcaya, Pablo Gutierrez, Jose Chauca

Addresses: Instituto de Medicina Tropical Alexander von Humboldt, Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, Lima, Peru. ' Family and Communitary Medicine Department, University of New Mexico, NM, USA. ' Sub Region de Salud Luciano Castillo Colonna, Sullana, Piura, Peru. ' Instituto de Medicina Tropical Alexander von Humboldt, Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, Lima, Peru

Abstract: The objective of this study was to analyse, through a statistical model based on autoregressive procedures, the effect of the malaria incidence rate during the previous month and of meteorological variables (temperature, total precipitation and humidity) on the incidence of Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax malaria in the observed month, in the main endemic areas Luciano Castillo and Colonna Health Region, Piura, Peru, during the period 1995–2002. The developed models captured an important part of the data variability. The coefficients of determination (R²) were 0.776 for P. vivax and 0.924 for P. falciparum. Similar models need to be validated in different ecological environments, such as the Peruvian jungle or other countries.

Keywords: malaria incidence rates; meteorological variables; autoregression; principal components analysis; PCA; modelling; Plasmodium falciparum; Plasmodium vivax; Peru; temperature; total precipitation; humidity.

DOI: 10.1504/IJENVH.2008.018671

International Journal of Environment and Health, 2008 Vol.2 No.1, pp.37 - 44

Published online: 05 Jun 2008 *

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