Correlation of Climate Change Indicators with Health and Environmental Data in the Philippines
Authors: Lu Jinky Leilanie 
Published: February 2022

Introduction. The Lancet Countdown used Global Burden of Disease (GBD) data to track mortality from diseases influenced by climate change. The Philippines is one of the most vulnerable nations to climate change.

Objective. This study aimed to provide summative data on climate change and health-environmental factors based on several large databases. It looked into the correlation of climate change to selected health variables and correlated environmental factors to health chosen variables in the Philippines.

Methods. The database was assembled through a compilation of different secondary data. Climate change variables were acquired from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD 2017) Study on Health-related Sustainable Development Goals Indicators from 1990 to 2030. The data for the Philippines were obtained. These indicators include air pollution mortality, disaster mortality, household air pollution, malaria incidence, mean PM2.5, non-communicable disease mortality, neglected tropical diseases mortality, unimproved sanitation, and unsafe water. The resulting database was analyzed using exploratory data analysis techniques with descriptive statistics and line graphs to analyze trends over the years. Then Pearson correlation analysis was done to explore the linear relationship between health indicators, climate indicators, and environmental indicators.

Results. The study results showed that the trend in the Philippines for air pollution mortality, household air pollution, malaria incidence, and neglected tropical diseases mortality is in a downward direction. However, non-communicable disease mortality was constantly increasing from 41.99 in 1990 to 55.00 in 2016. Meanwhile, the mean temperature is significantly negatively correlated to household air pollution, malaria incidence, and neglected tropical diseases and significantly correlated with non-communicable diseases. Also, NOAA adjusted sea level is significantly positively correlated with air pollution mortality, malaria incidence, disaster mortality, and non-communicable diseases. It is negatively correlated with malaria incidence and neglected tropical diseases prevalence. Global mean CO2 is significantly negatively correlated with household air pollution, malaria incidence, and neglected tropical diseases prevalence. On the other hand, it was significantly and positively correlated with air pollution mortality and non-communicable diseases mortality. Household air pollution health risk was significantly positively correlated to mean PM2.5 levels in the Philippines. Unimproved sanitation was positively correlated with household air pollution, malaria incidence, and neglected tropical disease prevalence.

Conclusion. As recordings of heat index increased, there was a correlation with NCD, Malaria, Disaster, and NTD infection mortality. With the evidence of the correlation of increasing temperature and pollution to health, the urgency to focus on addressing these problems was present in this study. Further research may help in policymaking to target drivers of pollution which affect extreme climate changes.