TAmong the environmental covariates, only land cover was selected by the geostatistical variable selection procedure. Precipitation, temperature and distance to freshwater bodies - factors that have previously been associated to malaria risk in Côte d’Ivoire [21, 22] - were not identified as important predictors in the current investigation. Possible explanations arise from the use of different data sources; while the national survey reported here was conducted in the dry season, the aforementioned study pursued at country level [22] used historical data obtained over a period of 20 years and during different periods of the year. In addition, particular geographic patterns such as for the mountainous area in western Côte d’Ivoire [21], where particular climatic and environmental conditions prevail and scale differences across studies may further explain contrasting results. Regarding the distance to water body, this variable had not been selected by our modelling framework as a potential risk factor for malaria. This observation might be explained by the fact that the distance from school to water body is not precise enough to capture this effect or that the source of water body is not sufficiently detailed. Unfortunately, we could not afford to collect information on the distance from each participant’s home to the nearest water body. Further effort is needed to identify additional water body information in Africa.