Climate, environmental and socio-economic change: weighing up the balance in vector-borne disease transmission

Abstract

Arguably one of the most important effects of climate change is the potential impact on human health. While this is likely to take many forms, the implications for future transmission of vector-borne diseases (VBDs), given their ongoing contribution to global disease burden, are both extremely important and highly uncertain. In part, this is owing not only to data limitations and methodological challenges when integrating climate-driven VBD models and climate change projections, but also, perhaps most crucially, to the multitude of epidemiological, ecological and socio-economic factors that drive VBD transmission, and this complexity has generated considerable debate over the past 10-15 years. In this review, we seek to elucidate current knowledge around this topic, identify key themes and uncertainties, evaluate ongoing challenges and open research questions and, crucially, offer some solutions for the field. Although many of these challenges are ubiquitous across multiple VBDs, more specific issues also arise in different vector-pathogen systems.

Keywords: climate; climate change; human health; modelling; vector-borne diseases.

Figure 1.

Schematic of the climate impacts and risk assessment framework (CIRF). (Online version in colour.)

Figure 2.

System diagram showing the key requirements for understanding the risk of dengue virus transmission in humans across the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East (EMME) region (pink) and the linkages between drivers, hosts and potential indicators for monitoring. DHF, Dengue haemorrhagic fever. (Online version in colour.)