Long-term exposure to malaria and violence in Africa*

Abstract

This paper explores the existence of a link between the long-term exposure to malaria and the frequency of civil conflicts in Africa. Using geographically disaggregated data at the level of grid cells the analysis provides empirical evidence for a hump-shaped relationship between the long-run stability and force of malaria transmission and the incidence of civil violence. In line with epidemiological predictions about the acquired immunity to malaria, cells that are characterized by intermediate malaria exposure exhibit higher conflict incidence than cells with very low or very high malaria exposure. We explore the role of the expansion of anti-malaria policies after 2005 in the context of the Roll Back Malaria programme. The results provide suggestive evidence that anti-malaria interventions reduced the incidence of civil violence, but only in areas where adults lack acquired immunity to malaria.

Long-Term Exposure to Malaria and Development: Disaggregate Evidence for Contemporaneous Africa

“…This result is consistent with the malaria epidemiology literature and with the findings by Cervellati, Esposito, Sunde and Valmori (2016) on the effect of increases in malaria risk for civil violence. These results can also help rationalizing the evidence by Henderson et al (2011) of a heterogenous effect of light on income for regions with different malaria prevalence.…”

“…This specification is extended subsequently by including controls for climate, geography, and cell area in Column (2), and additionally for location-distances and natural resources in Column (3). Column (4) further adds controls for ethnic diversity with the caveat that, following Cervellati, Chiovelli and Esposito (2016), the number of ethnic groups in a cell is potentially endogenous to the long term exposure to malaria through evolutionary dynamics. The findings throughout all specifications reveal a negative linear relationship between projected incidence of Plasmodium falciparum malaria and log night light per capita.…”

“… 4 The role of mortality and pathogen exposure for education is intensely debated, see Cervellati and Sunde (2013). Cervellati, Sunde and Valmori (2016) document that a harsher disease environment across countries increases the likelihood of civil wars, while Cervellati, Esposito, Sunde and Valmori (2016) exploit cell level panel data for sub-saharan Africa and document that temporarily higher malaria risk leads to spikes in civil violence. …”

Climate-related migration and population health: social science-oriented dynamic simulation model

“…Results show states with higher rates of vector-borne parasitic diseases [71] and more HIV/AIDS [72], and areas with more Ebola in West Africa [73] and Covid− 19 in Burkina Faso, Libya, Mozambique [74] and India [75] have more conflict. In Africa, areas with high and low malaria rates are at a smaller risk of conflict than areas with moderate rates [76].…”

“…The impacts of the EICC and previous conflict intensity follow RF functions (first increase and then decline due to, e.g., damage to arms and the ability to fight). The effect of HP pc also follows an RF function (rises and then falls as people become less able to fight due to, e.g., morbidity and, for infectious diseases like cholera, high exposure promoting immunity and thus reducing the pro-conflict effect [76]). The TNE effect follows scenario o_cr_tx.…”