Exploring the Association between Ambient Temperature and Daily Hospital Admissions for Diarrhea in Mopani District, Limpopo Province, South Africa.

Diarrhea contributes significantly to global morbidity and mortality. There is evidence that diarrhea prevalence is associated with ambient temperature. This study aimed to determine if there was an association between ambient temperature and diarrhea at a rural site in South Africa.

Health Risks of Temperature Variability on Hospital Admissions in Cape Town, 2011-2016.

Epidemiological studies have provided compelling evidence of associations between temperature variability (TV) and health outcomes. However, such studies are limited in developing countries. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between TV and hospital admissions for cause-specific diseases in South Africa.

Predicting diarrhoea outbreaks with climate change.

Background: Climate change is expected to exacerbate diarrhoea outbreaks across the developing world, most notably in Sub-Saharan countries such as South Africa. In South Africa, diseases related to diarrhoea outbreak is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality. In this study, we modelled the impacts of climate change on diarrhoea with various machine learning (ML) methods to predict daily outbreak of diarrhoea cases in nine South African provinces.

Exploring rural hospital admissions for diarrhoeal disease, malaria, pneumonia, and asthma in relation to temperature, rainfall and air pollution using wavelet transform analysis.

Background: Climate variables impact human health and in an era of climate change, there is a pressing need to understand these relationships to best inform how such impacts are likely to change.

Objectives: This study sought to investigate time series of daily admissions from two public hospitals in Limpopo province in South Africa with climate variability and air quality.

Methods: We used wavelet transform cross-correlation analysis to monitor coincidences in changes of meteorological (temperature and rainfall) and air quality (concentrations of PM and NO) variables with admissions to hospitals for gastrointestinal illnesses including diarrhoea, pneumonia-related diagnosis, malaria and asthma cases.

Tracking Progress Towards the Sustainable Development Goals in Four Rural Villages in Limpopo, South Africa.

Background: Measuring national progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) enables the identification of gaps which need to be filled to end poverty, protect the planet and improve lives. Progress is typically calculated using indicators stemming from published methodologies. South Africa tracks progress towards the SDGs at a national scale, but aggregated data may mask progress, or lack thereof, at local levels.

Spatial assessment of heavy metals contamination in household garden soils in rural Limpopo Province, South Africa.

Heavy metal pollution in soil poses a serious health threat to humans living in close proximity and in contact with contaminated soil. Exposure to heavy metals can result in a range of adverse health effects, including skin lesions, cardiovascular effects, lowering of IQ scores and cancers. The main objectives of this study were to (1) use a portable XRF spectrophotometer to measure concentrations of lead (Pb), arsenic (As), mercury (Hg) and cadmium (Cd) in residential soils in rural Giyani in the Limpopo province of South Africa; (2) to assess the spatial distribution of soil metal concentrations; and (3) to assess pollution levels in residential soils.

Climate change is catchy--but when will it really hurt?

Concern and general awareness about the impacts of climate change in all sectors of the social-ecological-economic system is growing as a result of improved climate science products and information, as well as increased media coverage of the apparent manifestations of the phenomenon in our society. However, scales of climate variability and change, in space and time, are often confused and so attribution of impacts on various sectors, including the health sector, can be misunderstood and misrepresented. In this review, we assess the mechanistic links between climate and infectious diseases in particular, and consider how this relationship varies, and may vary according to different time scales, especially for aetiologically climate-linked diseases.