Cited by 120Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource ManagementLand Use and Ecosystem ServicesPublic Health and Environmental Issues

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 57 of the 57 references it cites were found in a registry or an index; none of the 32 sources its claims cite is checked for support yet.

Public health impacts of ecosystem change in the Brazilian Amazon

Open access
Bauch, Simone C., Birkenbach, Anna M., Pattanayak, Subhrendu K., Sills, Erin O.·2015·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Abstract

Significance: Nature threads the very fabric of human lives in remote forest areas of developing countries. Unfortunately, we do not fully understand how ecosystem services (such as human health benefits) could be secured by conserving natural capital. Thus, we analyze a rich dataset on disease, climate, demography, land uses, and conservation policies in the Brazilian Amazon. Unsurprisingly, we find that the health dividends vary across conservation policies and are small relative to the overall burden of these diseases. However, interventions targeted specifically at preserving biodiversity (strict protected areas) generate health cobenefits. Thus, given a chance, nature does its part for human (health) capital, especially for the poor and politically voiceless.

Overview

AI snapshot

Written from the paper’s full text.

TL;DR

Combining municipal panel data from about 700 Brazilian Amazon municipalities (2003–2006), this paper finds strict protected areas are negatively correlated with malaria, acute respiratory infection (ARI), and diarrhea, while roads and sustainable-use protected areas have mixed associations. Scenario estimates suggest that expanding strict protected areas between 1990 and 2010 by 63% reduced malaria, diarrhea, and ARI by 6%, 2%, and 1.5%, respectively, in an average municipality.

Key findings

  • Strict protected areas are negatively correlated with malaria, diarrhea, and ARI; as expected for negative controls, strict protected areas are not correlated with AIDS, dengue, arthritis, or leukemia.
  • Sustainable-use protected areas are not associated with diarrhea and ARI and are positively correlated with malaria; indigenous reserves are negatively correlated only with diarrhea.
  • Roads are associated with higher malaria but lower diarrhea and ARI, consistent with dual effects on ecosystem disturbance and healthcare access.
  • Quantile regressions show relationships vary by disease level: strict protected areas are negatively correlated with malaria at the 75th and 90th quantiles but with ARI only at the 90th, and with diarrhea at all points except the 90th; roads are positively correlated with malaria only at the upper end, but with diarrhea and ARI at all levels.

Methods

  • Municipal-level panel dataset for the Brazilian Amazon covering 4 years (2003–2006) and about 700 municipalities, with 25 variables including malaria, dengue, AIDS, arthritis, and leukemia cases in the population and diarrhea and ARI cases in children under 2 years of age; health program coverage; weather; demographics; socioeconomic factors; and land-use drivers (strict, sustainable-use, and indigenous protected areas, roads, and mining).
  • Random-effects/error-components panel models and quantile regressions (10th, 25th, 50th, 75th, and 90th quantiles), with standardized coefficients presented for key land-use drivers and negative-control diseases used as falsification tests for protected-area effects.
  • Data sources include DATASUS, the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, the Ministry of the Environment, and IMAZON for road length.

Limitations

  • The paper states that regression results may be biased by omitted confounders, observed or unobserved; that more rigorous causal impact analysis would require longer time-series data; that negative controls may not be valid for all land-use drivers because those drivers have multiple impact channels (e.g., roads could increase AIDS); and that the analysis does not consider the full range of benefits or costs of protected areas, mining, or roads.
  • Evident from the text: the analysis is observational and reports correlations rather than causal estimates; the panel covers only 4 years; diarrhea and ARI are measured in children under 2 years of age, not the whole population; and municipal aggregation may mask individual-level behaviors and exposure.

Model-written summary. Check it against the paper before relying on it.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1073/pnas.1406495111

Cites

57 of 57 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Nothing to recompute.

Verification

Claims the paper makes

0 of 32 cited sources checked · 0 supported · 0 flagged

Show all 38 claims

  • It may state two separate claims as one. 17
  • Probably not a substantial claim. 10
21 of 21
  • The authors state this as an assumption.

    The four negative control diseases (AIDS, dengue, arthritis, and leukemia) are not theoretically related to landscape-level ecological changes.

    “we model four diseases that serve as negative controls for the link between PAs and disease because they are not theoretically related to landscape level ecological changes: AIDS, dengue, arthritis, and leukemia (Materials and Methods).”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Even less evidence exists on how specific conservation policies affect multiple health outcomes.

    “Even less evidence exists on how specific conservation policies affect multiple health outcomes.”
  • The authors state this as an assumption.

    The unexplained residual variation in the health outcome (the error) is unrelated to the land-use drivers.

    “We assume that the unexplained residual variation in the health outcome (the error) is unrelated to the landuse drivers, which largely reflect federal government decisions (about placement of roads and PAs) and the distribution of mineral resources.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Arthritis and leukemia have no known conceptual or empirical links to conservation actions.

    “Arthritis and leukemia have no known conceptual or empirical links to conservation actions.”
4 of 4

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

Each contradiction between two passages listed here was confirmed by an independent check.

  • Strict protected areas are said to reduce all diseases, but not the negative controls

    Minor

    The paper says expansion of strict protected areas reduced the incidence of all diseases considered. Elsewhere, it says strict protected areas were not correlated with four diseases included as negative controls, so the claim cannot apply to all diseases considered.

1 of 1

Citations

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Show all 56 references

Research works printed but not linked: 1

  1. SK Pattanayak, , Evaluating the health impacts of climate change and conservation policies using applied CGE. BE J Econ Anal Poli 9, 6 (2009).

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Items 101–120 of 120

Metadata

Authors
Bauch, S. C., Birkenbach, A. M., Pattanayak, S. K., & Sills, E. O.
Affiliations
  • Inter-American Development Bank (US)
  • Duke University (US)
  • North Carolina State University (US)
Venue
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Published
2015-06-15
Volume
112
Issue
24
Pages
7414-7419
ISSN
  • 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
  • 1091-6490
OpenAlex
W2125132456
Cited by
120
References
56
Citations by year
2026: 4 · 2025: 7 · 2024: 10 · 2023: 10 · 2022: 14 · 2021: 16 · 2020: 15 · 2019: 9 · 2018: 13 · 2017: 12 · 2016: 5 · 2015: 4
FWCI
9.28
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Land Use and Ecosystem Services
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis › Public Health and Environmental Issues
Keywords
ecosystem change, public health, protected areas, conservation policy, land use change, malaria, acute respiratory infections, diarrhea, environmental protection, roads, mining, natural capital, health co-benefits, Brazilian Amazon
MeSH terms
Brazil, Conservation of Natural Resources, Diarrhea, Humans, Malaria, Public Health, Regression, Psychology, Respiratory Tract Infections, Incidence, Infection Control, Ecosystem

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

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Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

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