Climate change impact on childhood anaemia predictedCredit: Pascal Deloche/ The Image Bank Unreleased/ Getty Images
An increased risk of childhood anaemia has been linked to higher temperatures, an epidemiological investigation in 26 sub-Saharan African countries shows. The study was drawn from a programme which collected health, behaviour and sociodemographic data about every five years in more than 90 low- and middle-income countries. In the first projection, the team initially found each 1℃ increase in annual temperature associated with a 13.8% increase in the prevalence of childhood anaemia. The researchers, led by Renjie Chen, from the School of Public Health, Fudan University, China, quantitatively evaluated the possible mediation effects of childhood malnutrition and malaria infection and found that 11.40% and 9.74% of the association could be facilitated by these two factors, respectively. They used the health data of children aged 5 years or younger in sub-Saharan Africa and matched the annual average temperature for each child over the 365 days prior to the interview day. “We examined the associations between annual temperatures and childhood anaemia prevalence. Furthermore, we conducted a causal mediation analysis to examine the possible roles of childhood malnutrition and malaria infection on the association,” he says. Based on the associations, projected temperature change, and population data, the researchers calculated the changes in childhood anaemia burden in sub-Saharan Africa due to climate warming over the projection period (2015–2099) under different scenarios. In Uganda, extreme weather events, particularly droughts, reduced calorie, protein, and zinc supply among rural children.
