Climate Variability and Human Anthropometric Outcomes: Evidence from India

气候变化和人类人体测量结果：来自印度的证据

• 批准号: 1618536
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University College London
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2015 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-1618536
• 关键词: Climate; Variability; Human; Anthropometric; Outcomes

Strategic Research Priority: Bioscience for HealthClimate variability is attributed to natural processes that lead to atmospheric alterations. These alterations can cause natural disasters, such as floods or prolonged droughts, which in turn may have numerous consequences for public health. While previous work has considered the health effects of extreme climate events, this Thesis focuses on the full range of variability in precipitation and temperature, as the exposure and human health outcomes, including attained or completed growth and nutritional status as primary outcomes among both children and adults (HAZ, WAZ and WHZ for children and height, weight and BMI for adult women). Under this framework and utilising a large Demographic and Health Survey dataset, the present study tested whether climate variability in India and more specifically in Uttar Pradesh, a large state that faces extreme fluctuations in weather patterns, is associated with short- and long-term effects on indicators of human health. The investigation involved exploring the effect of climate exposure at the time of birth in children, the propagation of this effect on adulthood and its inter-generational persistence, using Multiple Linear Regression analysis. Finally, the association of climate exposure at various times around birth with health outcomes was also explored. The outcomes of the analysis confirmed the hypotheses, indicating that the precipitation and temperature patterns in early life explain some of the variability in child HAZ, WAZ and WHZ, as well as in women's adult height, weight and BMI. This can be assumed in part to reflect differential exposure to ecological factors associated with precipitation and temperature that affect early growth rate. At the inter-generational level, the discovered signal was small and did not seem to denote any biological significance. The investigation of the effect of climate exposure at various early life timings indicated that around the time of weaning is when an individual is most vulnerable.

战略研究重点：健康生物科学气候变化归因于导致大气变化的自然过程。这些变化可能导致自然灾害，如洪水或长期干旱，而这反过来又可能对公众健康产生许多后果。虽然以前的工作已经考虑了极端气候事件对健康的影响，但本论文侧重于降水和温度的全方位变化，因为暴露和人类健康结果，包括儿童和成人（儿童的HAZ，WAZ和WHZ以及成年女性的身高，体重和BMI）的主要结果。在此框架下，并利用一个大型的人口和健康调查数据集，本研究测试了印度的气候变化，更具体地说，在北方邦，一个大的国家，面临着极端的天气模式波动，是否与短期和长期影响人类健康的指标。调查涉及探索儿童出生时气候暴露的影响，这种影响对成年的传播及其代际持久性，使用多元线性回归分析。最后，还探讨了出生前后不同时间的气候暴露与健康结果的关系。分析结果证实了假设，表明早期生活中的降水和温度模式解释了儿童HAZ，WAZ和WHZ以及妇女成年身高，体重和BMI的一些变异性。这可以部分地被认为反映了与影响早期生长率的降水和温度相关的生态因素的不同暴露。在代际水平上，发现的信号很小，似乎没有任何生物学意义。对生命早期不同时期气候暴露影响的调查表明，断奶前后是个体最脆弱的时期。