Abstract
Considerable interest in the relationship between biodiversity and disease has recently captured the attention of the research community, with important public policy implications. In particular, malaria in the Amazon region is often cited as an example of how forest conservation can improve public health outcomes. However, despite a growing body of literature and an increased understanding of the relationship between malaria and land use / land cover change (LULC) in Amazonia, contradictions have emerged. While some studies report that deforestation increases malaria risk, others claim the opposite. Assessing malaria risk requires examination of dynamic processes among three main components: (i) the environment (i.e. LULC and landscape transformations), (ii) vector biology (e.g. mosquito species distributions, vector activity and life cycle, plasmodium infection rates), and (iii) human populations (e.g. forest-related activity, host susceptibility, movement patterns). In this paper, we conduct a systematic literature review on malaria risk and deforestation in the Amazon focusing on these three components. We explore key features that are likely to generate these contrasting results using the reviewed articles and our own data from Brazil and Peru, and conclude with suggestions for productive avenues in future research.This article is part of the themed issue ‘Conservation, biodiversity and infectious disease: scientific evidence and policy implications'.
Highlights
The idea that environmental change alters the risk of malaria transmission is well established in the literature [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]
In exploring the linkages between malaria and forests in the Amazon, different researchers rely on different land use / land cover change (LULC) definitions, LULC classification methods and forest exposure metrics to explain malaria risk, all of which may lead to substantially different conclusions
We have reviewed the literature on the relationship between deforestation and malaria in the Amazon region and have highlighted topics that contribute to the disparate findings reported in the literature
Summary
The idea that environmental change alters the risk of malaria transmission is well established in the literature [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]. Over the past decade, popular headlines have broadcast contradictory findings: Smithsonian.com declared, ‘Save the Amazon, Increase Malaria’ [8], while ConservationMagazine.org reported, ‘Malaria Linked to Deforestation’ [9]. These claims are based on published scientific articles from Valle & Clark [10] and Vittor et al [11]. Deforestation, in particular, is a common theme in the literature examining the impact of environmental factors on malaria in the Amazon. While some studies conclude that deforestation can reduce malaria transmission [17,18], others claim that forest clearing increases malaria risk [11,19 –22]. We use this review, together with our own data from Acre (Brazilian Amazon) and the Iquitos–Nauta highway (Peruvian Amazon), to identify sources of confusion and themes that require additional research
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