Climate Variability and Human Anthropometric Outcomes: Evidence from India

战略研究重点：生物科学促进健康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，进而可能对公众健康造成许多后果。虽然以前的工作已经考虑了极端气候事件对健康的影响，但本论文关注的是降水和温度的全范围变化，以及暴露和人类健康结果，包括作为儿童和成人(儿童的HAZ、WAZ和WHZ以及成年妇女的身高、体重和BMI)的主要结果的达到或完成的生长和营养状况。在这一框架下，并利用人口与健康调查的大型数据集，本研究测试了印度，更具体地说，北方邦的气候变化是否与人类健康指标的短期和长期影响有关。北方邦是一个面临天气模式极端波动的大邦。这项调查涉及使用多元线性回归分析来探索儿童出生时气候暴露的影响，这种影响在成年后的传播及其代际持久性。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，表明早期的降水和温度模式解释了儿童HAZ、WAZ和WHZ以及成年女性身高、体重和BMI的一些差异。这在一定程度上可以认为反映了与影响早期生长速度的降水和温度相关的生态因素的不同暴露。在代际层面上，发现的信号很小，似乎并不代表任何生物学意义。对不同生命早期阶段气候暴露影响的调查表明，在断奶前后是个体最脆弱的时期。

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.