The economics of climate-sensitive infectious diseases affecting human health in Latin America and the Caribbean: a scoping review.

The incidence of climate-sensitive infectious diseases (CSIDs), such as dengue, chikungunya and Zika, has been rising in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). Reported cases of these diseases nearly doubled between 2022 and 2023, with the highest figure reported from Brazil. However, evidence regarding the economic cost of CSIDs is limited in the region. This scoping review aims to identify the available evidence on the economic impacts of CSIDs in LAC countries and the potential costs and benefits of adaptation interventions. We searched PubMed, the Virtual Health Library, Web of Science, Scopus, JSTOR and EconPapers and included peer-reviewed and grey-literature studies published between January 2015 and December 2023. 10 peer-reviewed studies were included in this review: 9 assessed the economic impacts of the health consequences of CSIDs and 1 assessed the economics of adaptation policies or programmes concerning human health in LAC countries. Most studies were conducted in Mexico and Brazil. Studies have focused primarily on the economic costs of arboviruses, influenza and enteritis. The outcomes most frequently studied were disability-adjusted life years and mortality. Only one study evaluated the economic impact of implementing an adaptation intervention for dengue. These findings highlight a significant gap in understanding the economic impacts of CSIDs, particularly because most studies fail to monetise the reported metrics, limiting their ability to provide a comprehensive assessment of economic costs and cost-effectiveness analyses of interventions. There is a need for further research in this field, incorporating data from a diverse range of countries in the region and analysing the economic impacts of various CSIDs, as well as the cost-effectiveness of interventions aimed at reducing their prevalence.