Climate change as an amplifier of health risks: highland malaria in Africa.

The interactions between climate and non-climate factors are of vital importance in shaping human vulnerability to global warming. In this chapter, this is illustrated for an important health risk induced by climate change, namely highland malaria in Africa. Despite the known causal links between climate and malaria transmission dynamics, the anticipated future impacts on disease risk are still surrounded by uncertainty, partly due to the fact that the relationship between vector-borne disease incidence and climate variables is complicated by many non-climate factors. We discuss some important non-climate factors that are crucial in determining the vulnerability context in the face of global warming. Although we focus on the example of highland malaria in Africa, the need for a systems approach is equally valid for other health impacts (e.g. food security, heat waves, flooding, and health impacts related to water scarcity).