Analysis of impact of climate change on children’s health in Limpopo province, South Africa

Adeboyejo A. Thompson, Ladoke Akintola University of Technology
Matamela Livhuwani, University of Venda
Kharidzha Danisa, University of Venda

This paper examines the relationship between climate change and children’s health, using data from five Municipalities in the Limpopo Province of South Africa. The study employs 10 years hospital record of clinically diagnosed climate related diseases among children under 13 years, to examine the incidence, spatial and temporal variations of the diseases and their relationships with rainfall and temperature data collected over 21 years period. The results show that, the most prevalent diseases were diarrhea, respiratory infection and, asthma. Disease incidence varied among and within cities, with the most tropical location, Musina recording the highest incidence and the high density areas with the highest proportion of diseases. Mortality rate was higher for males. While temperatures increase with time with r = 0.5, rainfall decrease over time (r =0.18) thereby indicating local warming. Incidence of disease tend to increase with temperature with r = 0.93, while showing low correlation with rainfall.