Health and Nutrition

Authors: Jessie Pinchoff, Brent Monseur, Sapna Desai, Katelyn Koons, Ruben Alvero, Michelle J. Hindin
Publication Date: January 2022

This article  is an ecological analysis of self-reported rates of stillbirth, recurrent pregnancy loss, and infertility in relation to ground water arsenic levels in India. It is one of the first population-level studies to document an association between arsenic and three adverse reproductive pregnancy outcomes.

Authors: Jessie Pinchoff, William Turner, Kathryn Grace
Publication Date: June 2021

This article examines the spatial patterns of growing season quality on dimensions of nutritional status and complementary feeding practices in children 6-23 months.  The quality and quantity of food available to children affect their nutritional status, with implications for long-term health and development. In Burkina Faso, households rely on rainfed agriculture, but climate change is making crop production unreliable.

Authors: Jessie Pinchoff, Mohammad Shamsudduha, Sharif M.I. Hossain, Abdullah Al Mahmud Shohag, Charlotte E. Warren 
Publication Date: June 2021

This analysis examines whether salinity in drinking water is associated with pre-eclampsia and eclampsia (PE/E), a leading cause of maternal morbidity and mortality. Bangladesh’s national health information system data were extracted at the district level (n = 64) to assess PE/E rates, and these were overlaid with three environmental measures approximating drinking water salinity, remotely sensed low-elevation coastal zone (LECZ), monthly rainfall data, and electrical conductivity of groundwater (i.e., water salinity). Results from a negative binomial fixed effects model suggest PE/E rates are higher with less rainfall (dry season), lower population density, and that district level rates of PE/E increase with higher groundwater salinity and in the high risk LECZ category closest to the coast. Results suggest that drinking water salinity may be associated with PE/E and that using national health surveillance data can improve understanding of this association. This approach can potentially be leveraged in the future to inform targeted interventions to high risk regions and times.

Child and adolescent health/well-being

Authors: Bidhubhusan Mahapatra, Monika Walia, William Robert Avis, Niranjan Saggurti
Publication Date: August 2020

Air pollution is increasingly becoming a serious global public health concern. Prior studies examining the effect of air pollution on health have ignored the role of households’ hygienic practices and socioeconomic condition, which are key determinants of the health status of a country like India. This study examines the effects of air pollution, measured in levels of particulate matters of size below 10 µg/m3 (PM10), on child-health outcomes after adjusting for hygiene practices.

Authors: Laura Nubler, Karen Austrian, John A. Maluccio,  Jessie Pinchoff
Publication Date: November 2020

There is growing evidence that early life conditions are important for outcomes during adolescence, including cognitive development and education. Economic conditions at the time children enter school are also important. This article examines these relationships for young adolescents living in a low-income drought-prone pastoral setting in Kenya using historical rainfall patterns captured by remote sensing as exogenous shocks. Past rainfall shocks measured as deviations from local long-term averages have substantial negative effects on the cognitive development and educational achievement of girls. Results for the effects of rainfall shocks on grades attained, available for both girls and boys, support that finding. Consideration of additional outcomes suggests the effects of rainfall shocks on education are due to multiple underlying mechanisms including persistent effects on the health of children and the wealth of their households, underscoring the potential value of contemporaneous program and policy responses to such shocks.

Modeling

Authors: Deborah Balk, Daniela Tagtachian, Leiwen Jiang, Peter Marotullio, Elizabeth M. Cook, Bryan Jones, Ahmed Mustafa, Timon McPhearson
Publication Date: October 2022

This article reviews a wide-range of existing approaches to generate estimates of future populations and identify their vulnerabilities to climate-change hazards, ranging from subnational population projections or the spatially-explicit allocation of populations linked to SSPs for the US and selected cities, city-specific population forecasting without climate considerations, and participatory approaches to future scenario development and fine-scale, within-city land use change models.

Authors: Leiwen Jiang, Bryan Jones, Deborah Balk, Brian C. O’Neill
Publication Date: April 2022

This article uses recently available data on spatial reclassification of rural and urban land areas and population, adopting multiregional demographic methods, and explicitly examines the effects of reclassification, natural growth and rural–urban migration on urban growth in the United States for the intercensal periods of 1990–2000 and 2000–2010.

Authors: Leiwen Jiang, Brian C. O’Neill, Hamidreza Zoraghein, Steve Dahlke
Publication Date: July 2020

This article presents a first set of population projections for US states that span a wide but plausible range of population outcomes driven by changing state-level demographic rates consistent with the widely used SSP scenario framework. The projections are carried out for all 50 states integrated through bilateral gross migration flows.

Gender

Authors: Bidhubhusan Mahapatra, Trisha Chaudhuri, and Niranjan Saggurti
Publication Date: October 2022

This article seeks to understand how climate change vulnerability is associated with women and children’s health (WCH) at the district level in India.

Authors: Joseph G. Rosen, Drosin Mulenga, Lyson Phiri, Natasha Okpara, Caila Brander, Nachela Chelwa, Michael Mbizvo
Publication Date: April 2022

Climate-induced disruptions like drought can destabilize household and community livelihoods, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. This qualitative study explores the impact of severe and prolonged droughts on gendered livelihood transitions, women’s social and financial wellbeing, and sexual and reproductive health (SRH) outcomes in two Zambian provinces.