Child health outcomes in sub-Saharan Africa: A comparison of changes in climate and socio-economic factors

Frank Davenport; Karthryn Grace; Chris Funk; Shraddhanand Shukla

doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2017.04.009

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Child health outcomes in sub-Saharan Africa: A comparison of changes in climate and socio-economic factors

Frank Davenport·Karthryn Grace·Chris Funk·Shraddhanand Shukla

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Abstract

We compare changes in low birth weight and child malnutrition in 13 African countries under projected climate change versus socio-economic development scenarios. Climate scenarios are created by linking surface temperature gradients with declines in seasonal rainfall sea along with warming values of 1 °C and 2 °C. Socio-economic scenarios are developed by assigning regionally specific changes in access to household electricity and mother's education. Using these scenarios, in combination with established models of children's health, we investigate and compare the changes in predicted health outcomes. We find that the negative effects of warming and drying on child stunting could be mitigated by positive development trends associated with increasing mothers’ educational status and household access to electricity. We find less potential for these trends to mitigate how warming and drying trends impact birth weights. In short, under warming and drying, the risk of more malnourished children is greater than the risk of more children with low birth weights, but increases in child malnutrition could be averted in regions that increase access to educational resources and basic infrastructure.

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Source-reported bounding extent: -25.60143° to 24.97457° latitude; -17.62504° to 50.47654° longitude. This indicates report coverage, not an exact sampling location. View area on OpenStreetMap.

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Frank Davenport, Karthryn Grace, Chris Funk, Shraddhanand Shukla. 2017. Child health outcomes in sub-Saharan Africa: A comparison of changes in climate and socio-economic factors. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2017.04.009

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