Associations between Malnutrition and Climate Variability in Papua New Guinea

Malnutrition is one of the significant health problems in parts of Papua New Guinea (PNG). PNG is located in the southwestern Pacific Ocean and has vulnerable environment from climate change. Malnutrition is an important risk factor for infectious diseases which are highly sensitive to climatic factors. This study was conducted to evaluate the associations between malnutrition and local weather and global climate indicators. The primary data, including monthly malnutrition cases, were collected the National Health Information System of National Department of Health from 1996 to 2008 over six areas in PNG. Monthly data on local climatic factors, such as precipitation (mm), mean of the daily maximum temperatures (?), were acquired from the National Weather Service. We used the southern oscillation index (SOI) and the dipole mode index (DMI) to represent El Nino southern oscillation (ENSO) and Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) for the regional climate factors. We estimated the association between the monthly cases o...