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Effect of temperature and its interactions with relative humidity and rainfall on malaria in a temperate city Suzhou, China

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Abstract

Malaria is a climate-sensitive infectious disease. Many ecological studies have investigated the independent impacts of ambient temperature on malaria. However, the optimal temperature measures of malaria and its interaction with other meteorological factors on malaria transmission are less understood. This study aims to investigate the effect of ambient temperature and its interactions with relative humidity and rainfall on malaria in Suzhou, a temperate climate city in Anhui Province, China. Weekly malaria and meteorological data from 2005 to 2012 were obtained for Suzhou. A distributed lag nonlinear model was conducted to quantify the effect of different temperature measures on malaria. The best measure was defined as that with the minimum quasi-Akaike information criterion. GeoDetector and Poisson regression models were employed to quantify the interactions of temperature, relative humidity, and rainfall on malaria transmission. A total of 13,382 malaria cases were notified in Suzhou from 2005 to 2012. Each 5 °C rise in average temperature over 10 °C resulted in a 22% (95% CI: 17%, 28%) increase in malaria cases at lag of 4 weeks. In terms of cumulative effects from lag 1 to 8 weeks, each 5 °C increase over 10 °C caused a 175% growth in malaria cases (95% CI: 139%, 216%). Average temperature achieved the best performance in terms of model fitting, followed by minimum temperature, most frequent temperature, and maximum temperature. Temperature had an interactive effect on malaria with relative humidity and rainfall. High temperature together with high relative humidity and high rainfall could accelerate the transmission of malaria. Meteorological factors may affect malaria transmission interactively. The research findings could be helpful in the development of weather-based malaria early warning system, especially in the context of climate change for the prevention of possible malaria resurgence.

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Acknowledgments

We are thankful for Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention and National Meteorological Information Center of China for providing the data for the study.

Funding

This work was supported by the Special Foundation of Basic Science and Technology Resources Survey of Ministry of Science and Technology (Grant No. 2017FY101202) and the National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program) (Grant No. 2012CB955502)

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Author notes

  1. Zhidong Liu and Shuzi Wang contributed equally to this article and share the first authorship.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Qilu Hospital, Cheeloo College of Medicine, Shandong University, Jinan City, Shandong Province, People’s Republic of China

    Zhidong Liu

  2. Shandong University Climate Change and Health Center, Jinan City, Shandong Province, People’s Republic of China

    Zhidong Liu, Shuzi Wang, Qi Gao, Yiwen Zhang, Qiyong Liu & Baofa Jiang

  3. Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, Cheeloo College of Medicine, Shandong University, No. 44 Wenhuaxi Road, Jinan City, 250012, Shandong Province, People’s Republic of China

    Shuzi Wang, Qi Gao, Yiwen Zhang & Baofa Jiang

  4. School of Public Health, China Studies Centre, The University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

    Ying Zhang

  5. School of Public Health, Fujian Medical University, Fuzhou, People’s Republic of China

    Jianjun Xiang

  6. School of Public Health, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia

    Jianjun Xiang, Michael Xiaoliang Tong & Peng Bi

  7. National Meteorological Center, China Meteorological Administration, Beijing, People’s Republic of China

    Shuyue Sun

  8. State Key Laboratory of Infectious Disease Prevention and Control, National Institute for Communicable Disease Control and Prevention, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Beijing, 102206, People’s Republic of China

    Qiyong Liu

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  1. Zhidong Liu
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Data analysis and writing of the first draft of the manuscript were performed by LZD and WSZ. LQY, SSY, XJJ, and TM provided assistance for data acquisition, data analysis, and statistical analysis. BP, JBF, and ZY participated in the coordination of the study and reviewed the manuscript. GQ and ZYW carried out literature searching and manuscript editing. All authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Baofa Jiang.

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Ethical approval for analysis of this de-identified data was granted by the Ethics Review Committee, School of Public Health, Shandong University (20120501).

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Liu, Z., Wang, S., Zhang, Y. et al. Effect of temperature and its interactions with relative humidity and rainfall on malaria in a temperate city Suzhou, China. Environ Sci Pollut Res 28, 16830–16842 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-12138-4

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