An Empirical Study of Malaria Incidence and Land Use Change of Palm Oil Industries in Malaysia

Abstract

Malaria is considered among dangerous infectious diseases on a global scale. There are three hundred to five hundred million cases of malaria disease every year, of which one million results in deaths as reported by the Center of Disease Control and Prevention. The World Health Organization estimates that in 2010 there were 219 million cases of malaria and 660,000 resulted in deaths. This paper examines the relationship between malaria incidence and land use change of palm oil, population and gross domestic product of Malaysia for the years 1986 to 2012. Regression results show that the variables land use change of palm oil, population, and gross domestic product are jointly significant in explaining the total cases of malaria incidences in Malaysia. Land use change of palm oil is shown to be not statistically significant as a determinant of the number of malaria incidences in Malaysia. Cointegration analysis suggests that the determinants, land use change of palm oil, population, and gross domestic product, have a long-run relationship with the total cases of malaria in Malaysia. On the other hand, vector error correction analysis shows that there is no evidence to suggest of a short-run effect of the three variables on Malaysian cases of malaria incidence.