In Botswana And Arid African Countries Climate Change Will Likely Worsen Threat of Diarrheal Disease

Kathleen Alexander, an associate professor of wildlife at Virginia Tech, found that climate drives a large part of diarrheal disease and increases the threat of climate change for vulnerable communities in a National Science Foundation funded study.

The only study of its kind in Sub-Saharan Africa is based on three decades of historical data and has important implications for arid countries around the world struggling with poverty and increasing health challenges.

Alexander, a veterinarian, teaches in Virginia Tech's College of Natural Resources and Environment and conducts research at the Blacksburg, Va., campus and at her nonprofit research center, the Center for African Resources: Animals, Communities, and Land Use(CARACAL), in Chobe, Botswana.

Alexander's research study, Climate Change Is Likely to Worsen the Public Health Threat of Diarrheal Disease in Botswana, was published today (March 26, 2013) in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.

Alexander and colleagues analyzed data on diarrheal disease from 1974, eight years after Botswana gained independence from British rule, through 2003.

Source: Eurekalert