Understanding the relationship among urbanisation, climate change and human health: a case study in Xiamen

Abstract

The objective of this study was to explore the correlation among urbanisation, climate change and human health. Temporal variation of the prevalence of communicable diseases and the meteorological parameters were analysed, and relations among communicable diseases, meteorological parameters and socio-economic statistical data are discussed based on correlation analysis and stepwise regression. The results showed that both socio-economic development and regional climate change have effects on the prevalence of communicable diseases. Prevalence of blood-borne diseases and sexually transmitted diseases in Xiamen significantly increased during the 1990s. On the other hand, the prevalence of respiratory infectious diseases and gastrointestinal infectious diseases showed a decreasing trend with economic development. Climate has changed in the past 50 years, and particularly so in the last 30 years. The prevalence of gastrointestinal infectious diseases is linked to variation of annual average temperature and relative humidity. Annual average temperature, maximum temperature, minimum temperature and precipitation could be important determinants of the prevalence of insect-borne diseases.

Keywords:

• climate change
• meteorology
• communicable disease
• socio-economic development
• temporal variation

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC 40901243, NSFC 40701059), and the Knowledge Innovation Programs of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (KZCX2-YW-422-1, KZCX2-YW-450-1, 0714121d10). We are grateful to the China Meteorological Data Sharing System for providing meteorological data. We also thank Mr. Chen Feng and Dr. Li Xiangyu for suggestions on using the meteorological data.