Climate and Heat Projections for Africa to Enable Targeted Interventions and Improvements in Neonatal Health Outcomes

Global warming and extreme heat events are known to have adverse effects on neonatal health. The implications of extreme heat on neonates can range widely, from causing extreme health risks due to neonates’ inefficiency in thermoregulation (3) to impacting the quality of the labor process (4)(1). Additionally, extreme heat can indirectly impact neonatal health by driving food insecurity, affecting nutrition intake and breastfeeding (2).

The IPCC 6th Assessment Report finds that over the next century, global warming will most likely exceed 1.5◦ C (5). Recent studies using CMIP6 models based on a variety of SSP radiation forcing scenarios have projected that over the 21st century there is increased warming over the entire African continent and an increase in population exposure to extreme heat (6). This, along with a lack of access to life-saving technologies and techniques for at-risk neonates, make populations in Africa highly susceptible to poor neonate outcomes.

This study will look at the relationship between CMIP6 projected daily variables and neonate health outcomes using data acquired from the NEST360 alliance, a network of US and African engineering schools working to develop technologies improving health outcomes for sick newborns. We will apply machine learning and statistical methods to understand how regional temperature changes will affect neonatal health outcome. We hope to define critical tipping points for extreme events, which define a threshold warming and humidity where we expect a nonlinear change in neonate and expecting parent survival rates. By defining regional critical tipping points, this research hopes to identify vulnerable populations in Africa and inform adaptation and interventions under global warming.

References

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Original Investigation.

[2] M. M. Blakstad and E. R. Smith. Climate change worsens global inequity in maternal nutrition. 4(12):e547–e548, 2020. Publisher: Elsevier.

[3] T. L. Cheng and J. C. Partridge. Effect of bundling and high environmental temperature on neonatal body temperature. 92(2):238–240, 1993.

[4] M. F. Chersich, M. D. Pham, A. Areal, M. M. Haghighi, A. Manyuchi, C. P. Swift, B. Wernecke, M. Robinson, R. Hetem, M. Boeckmann, and S. Hajat. Associations between high temperatures in pregnancy and risk of preterm birth, low birth weight, and stillbirths: systematic review and metaanalysis. 371:m3811, 2020. Publisher: British Medical Journal Publishing Group Section: Research.

[5] Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Core Writing Team, H. Lee and J. Romero (eds.)]. Summary for policymarkers. pages 1–34, 2023.

[6] V. Iyakaremye, G. Zeng, X. Yang, G. Zhang, I. Ullah, A. Gahigi, F. Vuguziga, T. G. Asfaw, and B. Ayugi. Increased high-temperature extremes and associated population exposure in africa by the mid-21st century. 790:148162, 2021.