Climate Change and Incidence of Infectious Diseases: Study of Health Outcomes in Russia

Climate change leads to a change in weather patterns, and it may hence affect human health. In this thesis, I study how weather shocks impact incidence of infectious diseases in Russia. Using monthly data on various infections and weather data from ground stations in Russian regions, I find that higher temperatures lead to a higher incidence of several weather-sensitive diseases, which is in line with existing epidemiological literature. An increase of Russia’s monthly temperature by 1°C corresponds to approximately 3,800 new ticks’ bites, 40 new cases of encephalitis and 57 new cases of Lyme disease monthly (which is around 9,1%, 48,8% and 13,6% increase relative to the average monthly incidence in September over studied periods). It corresponds to an additional budget burden of 2M rubles (0,003% of average monthly budget on healthcare) and 1.25M rubles (0,0021%) for Encephalitis and Lyme disease respectively.