The RITM at the Interdisciplinary PhD Workshop in Sustainable Development

Ingrid Dallmann has recently presented her article “Dengue, Weather and Urbanization in Brazil” in the Interdisciplinary PhD Workshop in Sustainable Development, organized by the Columbia University’s Sustainable Development Doctoral Society, on 22-23 April, 2016.

Abstract:
Since two decades, the population affected by dengue disease is exponentially increasing and dengue is now affecting more than 390 million people in the world. It ranks behind malaria as the second most important vector-borne disease in the world and the first one in Latin America. Despite the important economic and social cost of the uncontrollable growth of the disease, little economic analysis has been devoted to it. In addition to weather, socio-economic factors such as urbanization and sanitary systems play an important role in the proliferation of dengue. In this paper, I measure the impact of weather and urbanization factors on dengue incidence in Brazilian states and municipalities during the 1992-2012 period, since Brazil is the most affected country in Latin America. I find a positive and statistically significant effect of different weather factors (temperature, vapour pressure, temperature anomalies) and population density. An augmentation of 1% of the population density will increase the dengue incidence by 3%. The results also indicate that dengue rate is superior in Metropolitan Areas, than in the rest of the country. An increase in the access to waste management systems or drinking water reduces the dengue proliferation rate. Higher income is associated with a lower number of dengue cases, but simultaneously an increase in the dengue incidence by 10% reduces income per capita by 0.1%. Results are robust to the possibility of over-reporting in urban areas.