The impact of reduced incidence of malaria and other mosquito-borne diseases on global population

Abstract

Interrupting mosquito-borne disease (MBD) transmission was a 20th-century development. By exploiting a natural experiment hinging on the interaction between the probable onset of efforts to suppress MBD and the potential benefit to local communities' average health, this research finds that suppressing MBD explains at least 1.5% of the increase in global population growth since 1900. In Africa, estimates suggest 14% of growth is due to controlling MBD. Globally, the treatment effect is relatively uniform across the 20th century, while in Africa, population grew relatively faster after the widespread DDT spraying of the 1960s. Additionally, this research finds that different indices of historical malaria prevalence reveal complementary insights into the reduction of MBD and subsequent population growth. Robustness of the measured impacts are explored further using regional characteristics, such as topographic boundaries on the extent of Anopheles mosquitoes, as well as by controlling for other factors that could influence population growth.