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Statistical Modeling of Health Effects on Climate-Sensitive Variables and Assessment of Environmental Burden of Diseases Attributable to Climate Change in Nepal

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Abstract

An ecological time-series study is conducted to quantify health-effect coefficients associated with climate-sensitive variables namely temperature, rainfall, relative humidity, and wind speed and estimate environmental burden of diseases attributed to temperature as the main climatic variable together with climate change in Nepal. The study is based upon daily data of climate-sensitive variables and hospitalizations collected for 5 years between 2009 and 2014. Generalized linear model is used to estimate health-effect coefficients accounting distributed lag effects. Results show 3.08%, 10.14%, and 3.27% rise in water-borne, vector-borne, and renal disease hospitalizations, respectively, and 3.67% rise in water- and vector-borne disease deaths per 1 °C rise in average temperature. Similarly, 2.45% and 1.44% rise in heart disease hospitalization and all-cause mortality, respectively per 1 °C rise in absolute difference of average temperature with its overall average (20 °C). The computed attributable fractions are 0.3759, 0.6696, 0.2909, and 0.1024 for water-borne, vector-borne, renal, and heart disease hospitalizations, respectively, and 0.0607 and 0.4335 for all-cause mortality and disease-specific mortality of water- and vector-borne diseases, respectively. The percent change in attributable burdens due to climate change are found to be 4.32%, 4.64%, 7.20%, and −2.29% for water-borne, vector-borne, renal, and heart disease hospitalizations, respectively, and −1.39% and 6.55% for all-cause deaths and water-borne and vector-borne disease deaths, respectively. In conclusion, climate-sensitive variables have significant effects on many major health burdens in Nepal. In the context of changing climatic scenarios around the world including that of Nepal, such changes are bound to affect the health burden of Nepalese people.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the Nepal Academy of Science and Technology (NAST), Khumaltar for providing research grant under Climate Change Research Grant Program (CCRGP) to conduct the study entitled “Study and Assessment of Environmental Burden of Diseases Attributable to Climate Change in Nepal”. The program is a part of the Mainstreaming Climate Change Risk Management in Development study which is a component of Nepal’s Pilot Program for Climate Resilience. It is executed by the Ministry of Polulation and Environment, financed by the Climate Investment Funds, administered by the Asian Development Bank with technical assistance from ICEM, METCON and APTEC. We would like to extend our gratitude to all those involved in the study regarding data collection and entry and also to all the secondary data providers including the referred hospitals, Department of Hydrology and Meteorology (DHM), Kathmandu and Department of Health Services, Teku, Kathmandu, and the Ministry of Health and Population and private hospitals for providing approval/request letter (phect-Nepal and institutional review committee of KUSMS) for collecting data from hospitals and all others involved in the study. The authors acknowledge for NCEP/NCAR reanalysis data and World Bank Climate Change Knowledge Portal information on historical climate data of Nepal for free Internet access. Special thanks to Prof. Dr. Azaya Bikram Sthapit, Prof. Dr. Shankar Prasad Khanal, Head Central Department of Statistics, TU, and Prof. Dr. Ganga Shrestha for supporting us to conduct the research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Central Department of Statistics, Tribhuvan University, Kirtipur, Kathmandu, Nepal

    Srijan Lal Shrestha

  2. Nepal Environmental and Scientific Services, Kathmandu, Nepal

    Iswori Lal Shrestha

  3. Nepal Medical College and Teaching Hospital, Jorpati, Kathmandu, Nepal

    Niraj Shrestha

  4. Kathmandu Model Hospital, Kathmandu, Nepal

    Rajesh Dhoj Joshi

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  1. Srijan Lal Shrestha
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Correspondence to Srijan Lal Shrestha.

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Shrestha, S.L., Shrestha, I.L., Shrestha, N. et al. Statistical Modeling of Health Effects on Climate-Sensitive Variables and Assessment of Environmental Burden of Diseases Attributable to Climate Change in Nepal. Environ Model Assess 22, 459–472 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10666-017-9547-5

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