Health-related climate indicator across four states in Nigeria: Respiratory rate prediction and multivariate analysis approach

Abstract

Respiratory rate prediction(RRP) is vital for human or animal medical check-ups for a good health and well-being (SDG 3) to be established. The RRP is one of the biometeorological indices adopted to determine health-related climate indication, which is categorised into normal: ≤85, warning: between 85 and 110, danger: between 110 and 133, and emergency:  ≥133. The study obtained 32-year (1987-2018) data of temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and solar radiation from the archive of Nigeria Meteorological Agency, Abuja. The data were adopted to compute the RRP across four rain-fed States (Benue, Edo, Niger (Bida and Minna) and Ondo) in Nigeria and further subjected to multi variate analysis. The reliability test showed that the data had acceptable internal consistency with Cronbach's value of 0.773, and the monthly RRP significantly (p<0.05) varied across the study locations and their environs over 32years.ThePrincipal Component Analysis (PCA) categorised the rainy periods (April to October) under component 1 with a 49 % variance while the dry periods (January, February, November and December) except March under component 2 with a 17 % variance. Benue, Edo, Niger (Bida) and their environs had more prevalence of warning category of RRP (between 85 and 110) than Ondo, Niger (Minna) and their environs.  The study deduced that the health-related climate indication prevailed more in the wet than the dry
periods, necessitating inhabitants of the study locations to understand their thermal regime for climate change coping capacities,