Investigating the Impact of Environmental Factors and Climate Change on the Prevalence of Dengue Fever: A Narrative Review

Background and purpose: Considering the effects of dengue fever on the health of people in the society and the role of climatic and environmental factors on the spread of this disease, this review study has investigated the climatic and environmental factors affecting the prevalence of dengue fever. Materials and methods: In this review, the academic papers, in English and persian languages, published until the beginning of August 2022 were investigated. These articles were searched in scientific databasese of Scopus, ScienceDirect, PubMed, Web of Science and Google Scholar, using keywords such as "dengue fever", "dengue vector", "vector mosquito", "Aedes mosquito", "environmental factors", and "weather factors". Endnote X8 software was also used to organize, and study titles and abstracts of the articles. Results: Considering the impacts of environmental changes on mosquito population and its subsequent effect on the occurrence of dengue fever, the present study showed that changes in climatic factors including air temperature, rainfall, and humidity affect the frequency of dengue disease vectors. Land use and land cover change can affect mosquito population and dengue transmission by changing local ecology. Household waste and its accumulation around residential houses can also hold a significant amount of water as environmental pollutants and can be considered as a habitat for mosquito larvae such as Aedes species. Conclusion: The analysis of climatic and environmental factors has shown that environmental factors and weather changes can affect the occurrence of dengue fever.