Data and code from: Investigating the Yanomami malaria outbreak: Gold mining and malaria

The Yanomami, an Indigenous group from the Amazon, confront multifaceted
challenges endangering their health and cultural integrity. Of immediate
concern is the humanitarian crisis caused by surges in malaria amid
increasing illegal gold mining in their territory. Leveraging satellite
imagery and panel regression analyses, we quantified the effect of land
use changes on malaria incidence on their land (2016-2023). We observed a
~300 % increase in malaria cases during this period, associated with
increases in illegal gold mining. An increase of one standard deviation in
gold mining is associated with a 20-46 % rise in malaria incidence one to
two years later. We found that changes in forest areas significantly
affect malaria rates: for every one standard deviation increase in the
perimeter of forest edges, malaria cases rise by 55 %. Our findings
highlight the major impact of illegal gold mining and the resulting
fragmentation of forests on the high malaria burden experienced by the
Yanomami.