Let there be light, and lol and behold malaria returned: a cross country analysis of the electricity-malaria nexus in rural sub-Saharan countries

Malaria remains a significant public health challenge in many sub-Saharan African countries, with more than 247 million people tested positive and about 600 thousand deaths every year. Its burden disproportionately affects vulnerable populations, with consequences for their health, labour productivity, and standards of living.

While various factors contribute to the occurrence of malaria, the role that the access and the use of electricity may play has received limited attention. The development related benefits of electrifying rural areas of sub-Saharan Africa -where 70 % of the total population is not connected to the grid-are undoubtful. Electricity, on the other hand, may represent a channel for a surge of malaria cases; malaria vectors are attracted by electric lights and the availability of light in the evening may encourage habits that increase people exposure to malaria vectors.

This paper investigates the nexus between access to electricity and malaria incidence in children aged between 0 and 5 living in the rural areas of 10 Sub-Saharan countries; the dataset -which aggregates 15 household-level surveys from the Demographic and Health Survey collected between 2015 and 2021- gathers data on about 50,000 households and relies on 87,500 malaria tests on children.

Controlling for a range of variables, the econometric results done at the household and at the individual level suggests that the relationship between electricity and malaria prevalence is positive and significant -and robust to model specification. Depending on the module specification, the use of electricity may increase the occurrence of malaria of between 15 and 42 %, with the nexus being stronger for the lower strata of the rural population.