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Over the last decades, there has been an increasing interest among scientists on the linkage between population health and climate and environmental factors, as well as health impacts of climate change and climate variability. Numerous studies have been done and substantial results achieved, but mostly in the developed countries, and not much quantitative evidence or assessment of the impacts at national and local levels has been provided for developing countries.

This paper presents comparative studies of modern transportation systems in the Bengal Delta and British Borneo. To meet the demands of the new modes of resource extraction, the British colonial rulers introduced a new transportation system in both regions and built roads, railways, and navigational routes connecting major commercial and political centers. There has been little research into the historical connections between modern transportation and environmental changes in colonial South Asia and Malaysia. When modern transportation was introduced, environmental consequences were rarely considered. As a result, significant ecological changes and declines were unintentionally caused. The environmental changes brought about by these transportation systems in these two regions were not the same one from the other. For example, railroad construction harmed the plains and waterways in the Bengal Delta, whereas, in British Borneo, rubber plantations for the global market harmed the rainforests.

Climate change affects the geographic and seasonal range of malaria incidence, especially, in poor tropical countries. This paper aims to attempt to conceptualize the potential economic repercussions of such effects with its focus on Ethiopia.

The paper is conceptual and descriptive in its design. It first reviews existing literature and evidence on the economic burdens of malaria, and the impacts of climate change on malaria disease. It then draws the economic implications of the expected malaria risk under the future climate. This is accompanied by a discussion on a set of methods that can be used to quantify the economic effects of malaria with or without climate change.

A review of available evidence shows that climate change is likely to increase the geographic and seasonal range of malaria incidence in Ethiopia. The economic consequences of even a marginal increase in malaria risk will be substantial as one considers the projected impacts of climate change through other channels, the current population exposed to malaria risk and the country’s health system, economic structure and level of investment. The potential effects have the potency to require more household and public spending for health, to perpetuate poverty and inequality and to strain agricultural and regional development.

This paper sheds light on the economic implications of climate change impacts on malaria, particularly, in Agrarian countries laying in the tropics. It illustrates how such impacts will interact with other impact channels of climate change, and thus evolve to influence the macro-economy. The paper also proposes a set of methods that can be used to quantify the potential economic effects of malaria. The paper seeks to stimulate future research on this important topic which rather has been neglected.

Ghana is one of the countries instituting several measures toward attracting more Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflows. This is because, FDI is largely viewed as essential to socioeconomic development. However, while population health can influence FDI inflows, it has received very little attention. This study, therefore, investigates empirically, as to focusing on population health could be a useful tool in Ghana’s attempt to attract more FDI inflows.

The study uses time series data on Ghana from 1980 to 2018 to achieve its objective. Life expectancy, death rate, infant mortality rate, under-five mortality rate and incidence of malaria are used as proxies for population health, while the Ordinary Least Square (OLS) and the Instrumental Variable Two-Stage Least Square (IV2SLS) regressions are employed as empirical estimation techniques.

Using the OLS regression, except the incidence of malaria, the study finds all the other population health indicators to significantly influence FDI inflows. However, after controlling for endogeneity using the IV2SLS regression, all population health indicators are found to be significant as regards their effects on FDI inflows.

Paying attention to population health could be an effective strategy that can be employed by policymakers in the quest to get more FDI inflows into Ghana.

This study, to the best of our knowledge, is the first study solely devoted to Ghana, which doing so helps in devising country-specific policies with regard to the effect of population health on FDI inflows. Further, this study becomes the first to use death rate, infant mortality rate and under-five mortality rate in examining the effect of population health on FDI inflows. Thus, since there are various causes of deaths, using indicators that capture deaths from all factors helps in giving a much broader picture with regard to the FDI population health nexus. Also, this study is the first to use up to five different population health indicators in examining the effect of population health on FDI inflows, which aids in revealing whether FDI is sensitive to the population health indicator used.

The aim of this paper is to analyze Indian researchers' publications on malaria research and to serve as a guide to libraries needing to collect information on malaria. It also seeks to compare malaria affected Asian countries global rank with their publication and death rates.

For the purpose of the study Indian researchers' publication data which were indexed in Thomson Reuters Web of Science (WoS) were used. Various statistical techniques and bibliometric measures have been employed for further analysis.

The present study found out 2,020 documents with h-index of 48, published by Indian researchers which were indexed in WoS during 2003 to 2012 and the majority of them were articles (81.43 percent). Malaria Journal is the most favored research journal among the Indian research community which covers 97 papers. A.P. Dash contributed maximum number of 136 (6.74 percent) papers. Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) is the largest Indian funding agency with 184 (9.11 percent) research grants.

Limitation by geographical area and time, i.e. the study only focuses the research publication of Indian researchers on malaria research during 2003 to 2012.

This is the first attempt to apply bibliometric techniques to analyze malaria research by Indian researchers, and, more generally for a country which is very badly affected by the disease.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate epidemiology and control strategies of the four priority vector-borne diseases (VBDs) in Nepal, i.e. malaria, Kala-azar (visceral leishmaniasis), lymphatic filariasis (LF) and dengue fever/dengue hemorrhagic fever.

The study was a retrospective design to collect data during 1998–2016 from VBDs endemic districts of Nepal. All data were reviewed and epidemiological information of the four VBDs were analyzed.

The number of malaria cases during 1998–2016 of the 13 affected districts was declined from 8,498 to 991 cases with no record of deaths since 2012. The number of cases and deaths in the 12 kala-azar (visceral leishmaniasis) affected districts in 1998 was 1,409 and 42 cases, respectively, but was dramatically decreased in 2016 to 213 and 2 cases, respectively. LF cases of the 61 affected districts in 2011, 2014 and 2016 were 28,855, 30,000 and 33,517 cases, respectively. In total, 25 districts achieved elimination target and the remaining are expected to complete the needful cycles by 2018. Dengue incidence of the 31 affected districts during 2006–2015 was under controlled with reported cases of 642, 356 and 136 cases in 2013, 2014 and 2015, respectively, and only one death in 2015. Implementation of control strategies particularly disease management and community peoples’ awareness significantly reduced the cases and deaths of the target VBDs.

The results of this study clearly suggest that the current control strategies have been worked effectively. However, in particular of the VBDs, health education in communities in the endemic areas should be adopted for better community participation in the context of the primary health care approach and increase the effectiveness of disease control.

VBDs, i.e., malaria, kala-azar (visceral leishmaniasis), LF and dengue fever/dengue hemorrhagic fever, are major causes of morbidity and mortality in the least developed countries which include Nepal. Globalization of travel and trading, unplanned urbanization, environmental and climate change are having a significant impact on disease transmission. Therefore, the Ministry of Health of Nepal had brought some changes in strategies based on activities for disease control, vector control, preventive and preparedness for outbreak response. Consequently, the cases and deaths due to malaria, kala-azar (visceral leishmaniasis), lymphatic filaiasis and dengue fever/dengue hemorrhagic fever have been brought down markedly.

Perinatal health is a good indicator of both maternal health status and the level of socioeconomic status attained in any community. This article presents part of the findings of a research project conducted in 1997 by the author to look at the determinants of maternal and perinatal health in Kisumu district of Kenya. Data were collected from four health facilities within the district which were selected through purposive sampling to act as sentinel centres. In total, 1,455 obstetric cases were enumerated and those with perinatal complications were isolated. Perinatal health status was measured by the frequency of low birth weights, neonatal deaths, still‐births, and early neonatal morbidity. Cross‐tabulations and multivariate analysis have been used to identify the major risk factors of the perinatal health problems identified in the study area. Among other things, the study reveals that the risk of most perinatal complications is significantly increased by maternal and environmental factors. These include poor pregnancy care, malaria and anaemia during pregnancy, poor socioeconomic conditions of the mother and poor sanitary conditions in the household. Any policy measure aimed at promoting perinatal health should seek to address all these factors.

Despite the efforts to improve the usage of insecticide-treated nets (ITNs) among pregnant women in endemic malaria countries like Ghana, its usage still remains low. Therefore, this study aims to assess the intention to use ITNs and actual usage behaviour among pregnant women in Ghana using the integrated model of behaviour prediction (IMBP) and explore factors preventing its usage.

A structured questionnaire was administered to 310 respondents using a convenience sampling technique, and the data were analysed using multiple regression. Exploratory data collected through an interview guide was analysed using Kvale and Brinkman’s (2015) five-step approach.

The findings indicate a significantly positive association between intention to use ITN and actual usage of ITN among pregnant women in Ghana. Attitude and normative beliefs were the most significant predictors of intention to use ITNs among pregnant women. The result further shows that despite the generally positive perception of the effectiveness of the ITN in malaria prevention and positive intention to use it, its actual usage remains low because of discomfort (primarily associated with heat, irritation, heat rashes, suffocation and vomiting, size and design, reactions to ITN’s chemicals and misconceptions about ITNs causing cancer. In this study, the implications are discussed.

This study applied the IMBP to ITNs usage intention among pregnant women in a developing market context and found the model to predict ITN usage intention effectively.