The influence of climate change/variability on the prevalence of respiratory diseases: The case of asthma in Bamenda

SOP SOP Maturin Désiré

The influence of climate change/variability on the prevalence of respiratory diseases: The case of asthma in Bamenda

Keywords : Climate change, rainfall and temperature variability, Asthma, out/indoor pollution


Abstract

Issues of health are matters of serious concern in the day to day life of every community/society; for it is practically difficult and rare to tune to a television program or radio broadcast, browsing in the internet, taking a read of a newspaper or magazine without being alerted to health and its associated problems. Asthma (a chronic inflammatory disorder of the airways) seems to be one these problems occurring in most cities with Bamenda not being exempted. Triggered by most environmental factors including outdoor pollution by various gases released in the atmosphere as well as genetics, it is widely accepted that climate change is becoming a major threat in the causality of many disease as well as asthma. All speeches on environmental issues are actually focused on climate change and despite all efforts made; climate variability remains an obstacle to numerous economic sector and health. Cities are particularly vulnerable to climate change and climate extremes because they concentrate many activities, people and wealth in limited areas. As a result, they represent an interesting scale for assessment and understanding of climate change impacts as well as subsequent health effects. In this regard this study seeks to examine the relative influence of climate change/variability on the prevalence of Asthma thereby presenting a framework used to examine the relationship between climate variables (temperature and rainfall) and Asthma prevalence in Bamenda. Data on Asthma cases were collected from targeted hospitals in the Bamenda Health District as to know: the Bamenda Regional Hospital, Bamendankwe Health Center and the Providence Polyclinic Foncha Street from 2007 to 2014. To better apprehend the focus of our study, inter-annual monthly climatic data including rainfall and temperature were obtained from the Regional Service of Meteorology for the North West Region. The study statistically made used of the Spearman rank correlation coefficient showing the relationship between Asthma and the inter-annual pattern of rainfall and temperature. The calculated correlation coefficient confirms that there exist a moderate and very weak correlation of 0.410 and 0.003 between Asthma and Temperature and rainfall respectively when entered into SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences) software version 17. The Recommendations and suggestion made were guided by the GINA management principles and the climate change adaptative factors to reduce the burden of asthma prevalence and exacerbations.

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