TY - JOUR
T1 - Climate exposures and child undernutrition
T2 - Evidence from Indonesia
AU - Thiede, Brian C.
AU - Gray, Clark
N1 - Funding Information:
An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2017 International Population Conference (IPC) in Cape Town, South Africa. The authors thank Jacques Véron and other IPC session participants for their constructive comments, and Matthew Hancock for editorial assistance. Thiede acknowledges assistance provided by the Population Research Institute at the Pennsylvania State University, which is partly funded through the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (P2CHD041025). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.
Funding Information:
An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2017 International Population Conference (IPC) in Cape Town, South Africa. The authors thank Jacques Véron and other IPC session participants for their constructive comments, and Matthew Hancock for editorial assistance. Thiede acknowledges assistance provided by the Population Research Institute at the Pennsylvania State University, which is partly funded through the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development ( P2CHD041025 ). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Elsevier Ltd
PY - 2020/11
Y1 - 2020/11
N2 - Global climate change has the potential to disrupt agricultural systems, undermine household socioeconomic status, and shape the prevalence and distribution of diseases. Each of these changes may influence children's nutritional status, which is sensitive to food availability, access, and utilization, and which may have lasting consequences for later-life health and socioeconomic outcomes. This paper contributes to the emerging literature on climate and child health by studying the effects of temperature and precipitation exposures on children's height and weight in Indonesia. Drawing on five rounds of the Indonesian Family Life Survey (IFLS) implemented between 1993 and 2015, we estimate fixed-effects regression models of height-for-age (HFA) and weight-for-height (WFH) among samples of children ages 24–59 months and 0–23 months, respectively. We test for heterogeneity in these effects across sub-populations expected to vary in their vulnerability. Results show that delays in monsoon onset are consistently associated with worse child health outcomes. Delays in monsoon onset during the prenatal period are associated with reduced child height among children age 2–4 years. The weight of young (<2 years) children is adversely affected by delays in the most recent monsoon season, and this relationship is particularly strong among residents of Java. Overall, our results underline the need for interventions that protect children's nutrition and underlying health against the effects of climate change.
AB - Global climate change has the potential to disrupt agricultural systems, undermine household socioeconomic status, and shape the prevalence and distribution of diseases. Each of these changes may influence children's nutritional status, which is sensitive to food availability, access, and utilization, and which may have lasting consequences for later-life health and socioeconomic outcomes. This paper contributes to the emerging literature on climate and child health by studying the effects of temperature and precipitation exposures on children's height and weight in Indonesia. Drawing on five rounds of the Indonesian Family Life Survey (IFLS) implemented between 1993 and 2015, we estimate fixed-effects regression models of height-for-age (HFA) and weight-for-height (WFH) among samples of children ages 24–59 months and 0–23 months, respectively. We test for heterogeneity in these effects across sub-populations expected to vary in their vulnerability. Results show that delays in monsoon onset are consistently associated with worse child health outcomes. Delays in monsoon onset during the prenatal period are associated with reduced child height among children age 2–4 years. The weight of young (<2 years) children is adversely affected by delays in the most recent monsoon season, and this relationship is particularly strong among residents of Java. Overall, our results underline the need for interventions that protect children's nutrition and underlying health against the effects of climate change.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.socscimed.2020.113298
DO - 10.1016/j.socscimed.2020.113298
M3 - Article
C2 - 32932006
AN - SCOPUS:85090565123
VL - 265
JO - Ethics in Science and Medicine
JF - Ethics in Science and Medicine
SN - 0277-9536
M1 - 113298
ER -
