What is Malaria?

According to the Center for Disease Control Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease caused by parasites of the genus Plasmodium. It is transmitted to humans through the bite of infected female Anopheles mosquitoes. And according to the World Health Organization, malaria impacts over 200 million people every year, resulting in over half a million deaths a year world wide.

However, studies have increasingly shown that there is an undeniable correlation between wealth and the decreased likelihood of malarial infection. Take this chart from meta data from IHME, Global Burden of Disease (2024), Eurostat, OECD, and the World Bank (2025):

Wealth

GDP per capita in constant international-$ in 2021 according to the World Bank

Share of Population with Malaria

The percentage of the population in its respective region that is affected with malaria

Analysis

Some people may argue that more densely populated countries or countries with higher populations tend to have higher chances of getting malaria. However, even through a quick glance, you would be able to see that as the number of digits in the wealth category decreases, the share of the population with malaria significanlty increases, indicating a strong inverse correlation between wealth and the risk of being infected by malaria. And there seems to be little evidence to support the idea that population statistics are significant markers of malarial infection.

To further confirm this observation, I've compressed the table to the share of the population with malaria that correlates with the minimum, quartiles, median, and maximum quantaties of the population and wealth categories. This way, we would have less information to overwhelm us and we can more concisely see if there is a trend happening with key statistical markers.

The following image further demonstrates how strong the correlation between wealth and malarial prevalence. There is a distinct linear line that can be drawn to best represent the trend line between these two factors.

What Does this Mean?

With malaria outbreaks strongly tied to the financial well-being of a country suggests that their financial resources may be able to provide means to minimize malarian infections. This could come in the form of hospice care, proper sanitation, vaccines, and eating a good diet, which can all be supplied with substantial finances. There are some countries like Guatemala that serve as outliers. Guatemala was able to keep their malaria infection rates exceptionally low even if their GDP was considered very average. Delving into some research, it turns out that Guatemala has a designated stratefy to target malaria, according to investigators.