The Open Atmospheric Science Journal




(Discontinued)

ISSN: 1874-2823 ― Volume 14, 2020

Region-wise Effects of Climate Sensitive Variables on Some Specific Disease Burdens in Nepal



Srijan Lal Shrestha1, *, Iswori Lal Shrestha2, Niraj Shrestha3
1 Central Department of Statistics, Tribhuvan University, Kirtipur, Kathmandu, Nepal
2 Nepal Environmental and Scientific Services, Kathmandu, Nepal
3 Nepal Medical College and Teaching Hospital, Jorpati, Kathmandu, Nepal

Abstract

Background:

In the context of climate change scenario in Nepal with rise in average surface air temperature, an ecological time series study has been conducted to examine and assess the effect of climate related variables on some specific disease burdens covering areas of all the eco-belts of Nepal.

Objective:

The study is conducted to examine several health effects associated with climate sensitive variables separately between the three eco-belts of Nepal and estimate environmental burden of diseases that can be attributed to temperature as the main climate variable.

Method:

The study is based upon daily meteorological data including temperature, rainfall, relative humidity and wind speed collected from the Department of Hydrology and Meteorology, Kathmandu and hospitalizations including water-borne (enteric fever, diahrreoal diseases and hepatitis), vector-borne (malaria, dengue, encephalitis, leishmaniasis and filarisis), urinary system (chronic kidney diseases, urinary tract infections and renal failure) and heart diseases (ischemic heart disease including angina pectoris, cardiovascular arrest, cardiac failures and other cardiovascular diseases) and mortality (all cause and diseases specific) are collected from the leading hospitals of the study area for 5 years in between 14 April 2009 and 13 April 2014.

Results:

Results of generalized linear modelling accounting distributed lag effects showed varied health effects between eco-belts and hospitalization/death types such as 2.1% to 7.3% rise in the considered hospitalizations per 1°C rise in temperature, 0.9% to 8.2% rise in all cause deaths per 1°C change in temperature below or above 20°C, -8.7% to 2.4% change in hospitalizations/deaths per 1 mm rise in rainfall, -1.6% to 7.3% change in hospitalizations/deaths per 1% rise in relative humidity and -23.6% to 35% change in hospitalization/deaths per 1 m/s rise in wind speed which can be attributed to many significant differences that prevail between the eco-belts of Nepal.

Conclusion:

Even though health effects are due to many factors, climate conditions are significant factors in affecting health of people and climate change is bound to affect the health burden of Nepalese people for which Nepal needs suitable preparedness and adaptation policies to counter and minimize the hazards of climate change in years to come.

Keywords: Attributable burden, Attributable fraction, Climate change, Distributed lag effects, Environmental burden of diseases, Statistical modelling.

Article Information


Identifiers and Pagination:

Year: 2016
Volume: 10
First Page: 63
Last Page: 83
Publisher Id: TOASCJ-10-63
DOI: 10.2174/1874282301610010063

Article History:

Received Date: 29/08/2016
Revision Received Date: 23/10/2016
Acceptance Date: 01/11/2016
Electronic publication date: 30/11/2016
Collection year: 2016

© Shrestha et al.; Licensee Bentham Open

open-access license: This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 4.0 International Public License (CC BY-NC 4.0) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/legalcode), which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.


* Address correspondence to this author at the Central Department of Statistics, Tribhuvan University, Kirtipur, Kathmandu, Nepal; Tel: 977-1-5539397; E-mails: srijan_shrestha@yahoo.com, srijan.lal.shrestha@gmail.com


Track Your Manuscript:


Endorsements



"Open access will revolutionize 21st century knowledge work and accelerate the diffusion of ideas and evidence that support just in time learning and the evolution of thinking in a number of disciplines."


Daniel Pesut
(Indiana University School of Nursing, USA)

"It is important that students and researchers from all over the world can have easy access to relevant, high-standard and timely scientific information. This is exactly what Open Access Journals provide and this is the reason why I support this endeavor."


Jacques Descotes
(Centre Antipoison-Centre de Pharmacovigilance, France)

"Publishing research articles is the key for future scientific progress. Open Access publishing is therefore of utmost importance for wider dissemination of information, and will help serving the best interest of the scientific community."


Patrice Talaga
(UCB S.A., Belgium)

"Open access journals are a novel concept in the medical literature. They offer accessible information to a wide variety of individuals, including physicians, medical students, clinical investigators, and the general public. They are an outstanding source of medical and scientific information."


Jeffrey M. Weinberg
(St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center, USA)

"Open access journals are extremely useful for graduate students, investigators and all other interested persons to read important scientific articles and subscribe scientific journals. Indeed, the research articles span a wide range of area and of high quality. This is specially a must for researchers belonging to institutions with limited library facility and funding to subscribe scientific journals."


Debomoy K. Lahiri
(Indiana University School of Medicine, USA)

"Open access journals represent a major break-through in publishing. They provide easy access to the latest research on a wide variety of issues. Relevant and timely articles are made available in a fraction of the time taken by more conventional publishers. Articles are of uniformly high quality and written by the world's leading authorities."


Robert Looney
(Naval Postgraduate School, USA)

"Open access journals have transformed the way scientific data is published and disseminated: particularly, whilst ensuring a high quality standard and transparency in the editorial process, they have increased the access to the scientific literature by those researchers that have limited library support or that are working on small budgets."


Richard Reithinger
(Westat, USA)

"Not only do open access journals greatly improve the access to high quality information for scientists in the developing world, it also provides extra exposure for our papers."


J. Ferwerda
(University of Oxford, UK)

"Open Access 'Chemistry' Journals allow the dissemination of knowledge at your finger tips without paying for the scientific content."


Sean L. Kitson
(Almac Sciences, Northern Ireland)

"In principle, all scientific journals should have open access, as should be science itself. Open access journals are very helpful for students, researchers and the general public including people from institutions which do not have library or cannot afford to subscribe scientific journals. The articles are high standard and cover a wide area."


Hubert Wolterbeek
(Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands)

"The widest possible diffusion of information is critical for the advancement of science. In this perspective, open access journals are instrumental in fostering researches and achievements."


Alessandro Laviano
(Sapienza - University of Rome, Italy)

"Open access journals are very useful for all scientists as they can have quick information in the different fields of science."


Philippe Hernigou
(Paris University, France)

"There are many scientists who can not afford the rather expensive subscriptions to scientific journals. Open access journals offer a good alternative for free access to good quality scientific information."


Fidel Toldrá
(Instituto de Agroquimica y Tecnologia de Alimentos, Spain)

"Open access journals have become a fundamental tool for students, researchers, patients and the general public. Many people from institutions which do not have library or cannot afford to subscribe scientific journals benefit of them on a daily basis. The articles are among the best and cover most scientific areas."


M. Bendandi
(University Clinic of Navarre, Spain)

"These journals provide researchers with a platform for rapid, open access scientific communication. The articles are of high quality and broad scope."


Peter Chiba
(University of Vienna, Austria)

"Open access journals are probably one of the most important contributions to promote and diffuse science worldwide."


Jaime Sampaio
(University of Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, Portugal)

"Open access journals make up a new and rather revolutionary way to scientific publication. This option opens several quite interesting possibilities to disseminate openly and freely new knowledge and even to facilitate interpersonal communication among scientists."


Eduardo A. Castro
(INIFTA, Argentina)

"Open access journals are freely available online throughout the world, for you to read, download, copy, distribute, and use. The articles published in the open access journals are high quality and cover a wide range of fields."


Kenji Hashimoto
(Chiba University, Japan)

"Open Access journals offer an innovative and efficient way of publication for academics and professionals in a wide range of disciplines. The papers published are of high quality after rigorous peer review and they are Indexed in: major international databases. I read Open Access journals to keep abreast of the recent development in my field of study."


Daniel Shek
(Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong)

"It is a modern trend for publishers to establish open access journals. Researchers, faculty members, and students will be greatly benefited by the new journals of Bentham Science Publishers Ltd. in this category."


Jih Ru Hwu
(National Central University, Taiwan)

Browse Contents



Webmaster Contact: info@benthamopen.net
Copyright © 2023 Bentham Open