Climate, weather, and child health: quantifying health co-benefits

Dasgupta, Shouro and Robinson, Elizabeth J. Z. ORCID: 0000-0002-4950-0183 (2024) Climate, weather, and child health: quantifying health co-benefits. Environmental Research Letters, 19 (8). ISSN 1748-9326

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Abstract

Climate change affects human health negatively in a number of complex ways, and children are particularly vulnerable. Quantifying the negative impacts of climate change on health, and identifying locations where children are at greater risk, can aid evidence-based policy making. We combine high-resolution climatic data with a dataset on infant and child mortality, wasting, and stunting, from more than a hundred countries, to estimate the effects of both gradual and acute climate change, focusing on drought and heatwaves, to plausibly attribute changing child health outcomes to historical climate change. Our results suggest a non-linear relationship between temperature and children's health, adverse effects of increases in acute events, and a strong regional heterogeneity in these impacts. Our findings also highlight the importance of poverty reduction. Greater wealth is associated with better child health outcomes, and partially mitigates the negative impacts of climate change on child health. Finally, using updated warming scenarios, our projections show that there are substantial health co-benefits from achieving low emissions scenarios.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	https://iopscience.iop.org/journal/1748-9326
Additional Information:	© 2024 The Authors
Divisions:	Grantham Research Institute
Subjects:	G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GE Environmental Sciences R Medicine > RJ Pediatrics > RJ101 Child Health. Child health services
Date Deposited:	02 Jul 2024 08:57
Last Modified:	19 Nov 2024 00:54
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/124075

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