Abstract
Understanding how climate change and demographic factors may shape future population exposure to viruses such as Zika, dengue, or chikungunya, transmitted by Aedes mosquitoes is essential to improving public health preparedness. In this study, we combine projections of cumulative monthly Aedes-borne virus transmission risk with spatially explicit population projections for vulnerable demographic groups to explore future county-level population exposure across the conterminous United States. We employ a scenario matrix—combinations of climate scenarios (Representative Concentration Pathways) and socioeconomic scenarios (Shared Socioeconomic Pathways)—to assess the full range of uncertainty in emissions, socioeconomic development, and demographic change. Human exposure is projected to increase under most scenarios, up to + 177% at the national scale in 2080 under SSP5*RCP8.5 relative to a historical baseline. Projected exposure changes are predominantly driven by population changes in vulnerable demographic groups, although climate change is also important, particularly in the western region where future exposure would be about 30% lower under RCP2.6 compared to RCP8.5. The results emphasize the crucial role that socioeconomic and demographic change play in shaping future population vulnerability and exposure to Aedes-borne virus transmission risk in the United States, and underline the importance of including socioeconomic scenarios in projections of climate-related vector-borne disease impacts.
Highlights
Aedes mosquitoes can transmit dengue, chikungunya and Zika viruses (Leta et al, 2018)
We demonstrated that the type of socioeconomic pathway plays a critical role in shaping future population vulnerability and exposure to Aedes-borne virus transmission risk (VTR), when the pathway projects a decrease in certain vulnerable groups such as low-income populations
Our approach emphasizes the importance of including SSP-based population projections to ensure a more realistic portrayal of future Aedes-borne VTR under climate change scenarios
Summary
Aedes mosquitoes can transmit dengue, chikungunya and Zika viruses (Leta et al, 2018). While the influence of climate change on the expansion and redistribution of Aedes mosquitoes and Aedes-borne virus transmission risk has been explored in a wide range of studies (e.g. Campbell et al, 2015, Liu-Helmersson et al, 2019, Ryan et al, 2019), the use of projected population growth rates and patterns to estimate future population vulnerability and exposure to Aedes mosquitoes and Aedes-borne virus transmission risk is less common (Monaghan et al, 2016, Kraemer et al, 2019, Messina et al, 2019) The omission of these population projections, and lack of consideration of population subgroups, is potentially problematic in that it may lead to an overestimation of the role that climate change plays in shaping future population exposure to vectorborne diseases (VBDs) and introduces systematic bias into climate-related health adaptation planning (Ebi et al, 2016, Suk, 2016), and may lead to skewed estimates of impact across socio-demographic subgroups of the population. We explore separately the relative contribution of climate change and demographic growth to future exposure, and assess the avoided exposure due to strong mitigation options or to different socioeconomic pathways
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