Spatial Analysis of Malaria Cases in Palawan, Philippines

Palawan identifies malaria as one of the threats to its overall health care and development. Nearly 95 percent of malaria cases in the country in 2016 were recorded in Palawan alone – indicating that malaria cases are highly concentrated in the said province. The need to monitor and recognize geographical patterns of the disease is a great help in controlling malaria outbreak and in increasing awareness about the disease risk.  Early action and detection of malaria epidemics are important to reduce the number of deaths and illnesses caused by malaria and to reduce its impact to the socioeconomic burden among barangays in Palawan. This study investigated malaria cases among the barangays in Palawan, and its spread across neighboring barangays. Spatial analysis was performed using different neighborhood criteria - queen's and rook's contiguity weight matrices, k-nearest neighbors weights matrices (k value set to 3, 4, 5), and distance-band weight matrices (a cutoff distance of 8, 9, and 10 km). Results showed that barangays in the southernmost part of Palawan which include Bunog, Iraan, Ransang, Campong Ulay, Culasian, Candawaga, Canipaan, Punta Baja, Bulalacao, Panaligaan, Malihud, Salogon, Marangas, Samarenana, Malis, Saraza, Mainit, Culandanum, Ipilan and Pangobilian were consistently classified as high-high cluster using the different weights matrices.