ArticleScientific reports2020
Characterizing the contribution of high temperatures to child undernourishment in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Article in Scientific reports, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 24 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
24 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 76 citations in OpenAlex.
- High ambient temperature effects on the anthropometric status of the population: A systematic review and meta-analysis.PloS one · 2026Pooled it
- The Effect of Rainfall and Temperature Patterns on Childhood Linear Growth in the Tropics: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2024Pooled it
- Effect of heat stress in the first 1000 days of life on fetal and infant growth: a secondary analysis of the ENID randomised controlled trial.The Lancet. Planetary health · 2024Trial
- Exploring the Effects of Climate Variability on Diarrheal Diseases, Malaria, and Malnutrition in Children Under Five Years in Revuè Sub-Basin, Manica Province, Mozambique.Tropical medicine and infectious disease · 2026Article
- The Association Between Heat Stress and Child Stunting, Wasting, and Underweight Under Varying Vegetation Covers in Ethiopia.Maternal & child nutrition · 2026Article
- Extreme rainfall and anaemia among children under five in 46 low- and middle-income countries.BMJ global health · 2026Article
- Exploring the Effects of Climate Change on Child Malnutrition: A Scoping Review.Journal of human nutrition and dietetics : the official journal of the British Dietetic Association · 2026Article
- Predicting the effects of temperature variability on nutritional status of children under five in Sub-Saharan Africa using machine learning.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Ambient temperature, rainfall, and adverse maternal and child health outcomes in Nigeria: evidence from a national cross-sectional study.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- Assessment of heatwave impacts on child feeding practices across 36 low-income and middle-income countries: a cross-sectional analysis.The Lancet. Planetary health · 2025Article
- Article
- Precipitation, temperature, and child undernutrition: evidence from the Mali demographic and health surveys 2012-2013 and 2018.Journal of health, population, and nutrition · 2025Article
- Insights into the impact of ambient heat exposure on the first 1000 days of life.Temperature (Austin, Tex.) · 2025Article
- Impact of Heat on Birth Outcomes and Child Nutrition: Study Protocol using the CIDACS Birth Cohort.Wellcome open research · 2025Article
- Article
- Predicting the short and long term effects of food price inflation, armed conflicts, and climate variability on global acute malnutrition in Somalia.Journal of health, population, and nutrition · 2024Article
- Temperature anomalies undermine the health of reproductive-age women in low- and middle-income countries.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Child Fostering in a Changing Climate: Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa.Population and environment · 2023Article
- Global warming may significantly increase childhood anemia burden in sub-Saharan Africa.One earth (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2023Article
- Climate Change and Substance-Use Behaviors: A Risk-Pathways Framework.Perspectives on psychological science : a journal of the Association for Psychological Science · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Despite improvements to global economic conditions, child undernourishment has increased in recent years, with approximately 7.5% of children suffering from wasting. Climate change is expected to worsen food insecurity and increase potential threats to nutrition, particularly in low-income and lower-middle income countries where the majority of undernourished children live. We combine anthropometric data for 192,000 children from 30 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa with historical climate data to directly estimate the effect of temperature on key malnutrition outcomes. We first document a strong negative relationship between child weight and average temperature across regions. We then exploit variation in weather conditions to statistically identify the effects of increased temperatures over multiple time scales on child nutrition. Increased temperatures in the month of survey, year leading up to survey and child lifetime lead to meaningful declines in acute measures of child nutrition. We find that the lifetime-scale effects explain most of the region-level negative relationship between weight and temperature, indicating that high temperatures may be a constraint on child nutrition. We use CMIP5 local temperature projections to project the impact of future warming, and find substantial increases in malnutrition depending on location: western Africa would see a 37% increase in the prevalence of wasting by 2100, and central and eastern Africa 25%.
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Registered trials
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