Revisions To Malcomb 2014 Reproduction

In 2014, Malcomb et. al. published a climate vulnerability model of Malawi integrating socioeconomic and physical risk factors. In 2023, Joe Holler et. al. attempted a reproduction of Malcomb et. al’s study, to partial success. Holler and his team were able to partially replicate the original study’s model of household resilience (derived from indicators classified as assets or access), but failed to replicate the original study’s model of overal vulnerability. Differences between the original study and Holler’s reproduction are due in large part to omitted or unclear anylitical methods, though his team also discovered some data errors in the geometric features of Lake Malawi and the Traditional Authorities (the spatial scale at which household resilience scores were aggregated). In addition to attempting to reproduce the vulnerability model of the original study, the reproduction study also includes an alternate vulnerability model using geometric, rather than additive aggregation. This alternative method is more sensitive to outliers and thus may be better suited to highlight priority areas for intervention.