On the Influence of Climate and Socio-Economic Condition to the Dengue Incidences: A Semiparametric Panel Regression Approach

Abstract

Dengue is one of the most dangerous diseases in the worlds. In particularly in East Java province Indonesia, dengue has been identified as one of the major causes of death. Hence, it is important to investigate the factors that induce the number of dengue incidences in this region. This study examines climate and socio-economic conditions, which are assumed to influence the number of dengue in the examined region. The semiparametric panel regression approach has been applied and the results are compared with the standard panel regression. In this case, the socio-economic condition is treated parametrically while climate effect is modeled nonparametrically. The analysis showed that the number of dengue incidences is significantly influenced by the income per-capita and the number of inhabitant below 15 years. Furthermore, the dengue incidence is optimum under rainfall of 1500 to 3670 mm, temperature of 22 to 27 degree and humidity of 82 to 87%. The elasticity allows us to identify the most responsive and most irresponsive district towards the changes of climate variable. The study shows that Surabaya is the most responsive district with respect to the change of climate variables.