Abstract
This study aimed to assess the association between climate factors and the incidence of childhood pneumonia in Papua New Guinea quantitatively and to evaluate the variability of the effect size according to their geographic properties. The pneumonia incidence in children under five-year and meteorological factors were obtained from six areas, including monthly rainfall and the monthly average daily maximum temperatures during the period from 1997 to 2006 from national health surveillance data. A generalized linear model was applied to measure the effect size of local and regional climate factor. The pooled risk of pneumonia in children per every 10 mm increase of rainfall was 0.24% (95% confidence interval: −0.01%–0.50%), and risk per every 1 °C increase of the monthly mean of the maximum daily temperatures was 4.88% (95% CI: 1.57–8.30). Southern oscillation index and dipole mode index showed an overall negative effect on childhood pneumonia incidence, −0.57% and −4.30%, respectively, and the risk of pneumonia was higher in the dry season than in the rainy season (pooled effect: 12.08%). There was a variability in the relationship between climate factors and pneumonia which is assumed to reflect distribution of the determinants of and vulnerability to pneumonia in the community.
Highlights
Pneumonia is a major health problem worldwide and is one of the primary causes of death in children under five years of age [1]
We demonstrated the effect of local and global climate factors on childhood pneumonia in a developing tropical country
Childhood pneumonia incidence generally increased in the dry season in our study, which contradicts our results regarding the positive association with rainfall and contradicts past research on increased pneumonia risk in the rainy season [9]
Summary
Pneumonia is a major health problem worldwide and is one of the primary causes of death in children under five years of age [1]. Its incidence demonstrates high seasonality, i.e., higher incidence in the winter in the temperate areas and in the rainy season in the tropical areas [5,6,7,8]. Prior studies have investigated the relationship between respiratory diseases and various climate factors in the tropical areas. In Malaysia, more rainy days per month and lower monthly mean temperature from November to January were related with higher occurrence of respiratory syncytial virus infection in children [5]. High seasonality of pneumonia in tropical and subtropical areas was interpreted with daytime sunshine hours [9] and increasing ambient temperature in Taiwan [7]
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