TY - JOUR
T1 - Heatwaves and wildfires suffocate our healthy start to life
T2 - time to assess impact and take action
AU - Bansal, Amita
AU - Cherbuin, Nicolas
AU - Davis, Deborah L
AU - Peek, Michael J
AU - Wingett, Amanda
AU - Christensen, Bruce K
AU - Carlisle, Hazel
AU - Broom, Margaret
AU - Schoenaker, Danielle A J M
AU - Dahlstrom, Jane E
AU - Phillips, Christine B
AU - Vardoulakis, Sotiris
AU - Nanan, Ralph
AU - Nolan, Christopher J
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors would like to thank all members of the Mother and Child 2020 study team (MC2020team.anu.edu.au) for thoughtful discussions while preparing this manuscript. The Mother and Child 2020 study is supported by the Finley River fund and the Australian National University Fiji Alumni and a grant from the College of Health and Medicine, Australian National University. DAJMS is supported by the NIHR Southampton Biomedical Research Centre (IS-BRC-1215–20004). SV, CBP, and CJN acknowledge the HEAL (Healthy Environments And Lives) National Research Network, which receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council Special Initiative in Human Health and Environmental Change (grant number 2008937).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an Open Access article under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license
PY - 2023/8
Y1 - 2023/8
N2 - Adverse environmental exposures in utero and early childhood are known to programme long-term health. Climate change, by contributing to severe heatwaves, wildfires, and other natural disasters, is plausibly associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes and an increase in the future burden of chronic diseases in both mothers and their babies. In this Personal View, we highlight the limitations of existing evidence, specifically on the effects of severe heatwave and wildfire events, and compounding syndemic events such as the COVID-19 pandemic, on the short-term and long-term physical and mental health of pregnant women and their babies, taking into account the interactions with individual and community vulnerabilities. We highlight a need for an international, interdisciplinary collaborative effort to systematically study the effects of severe climate-related environmental crises on maternal and child health. This will enable informed changes to public health policy and clinical practice necessary to safeguard the health and wellbeing of current and future generations.
AB - Adverse environmental exposures in utero and early childhood are known to programme long-term health. Climate change, by contributing to severe heatwaves, wildfires, and other natural disasters, is plausibly associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes and an increase in the future burden of chronic diseases in both mothers and their babies. In this Personal View, we highlight the limitations of existing evidence, specifically on the effects of severe heatwave and wildfire events, and compounding syndemic events such as the COVID-19 pandemic, on the short-term and long-term physical and mental health of pregnant women and their babies, taking into account the interactions with individual and community vulnerabilities. We highlight a need for an international, interdisciplinary collaborative effort to systematically study the effects of severe climate-related environmental crises on maternal and child health. This will enable informed changes to public health policy and clinical practice necessary to safeguard the health and wellbeing of current and future generations.
KW - Child
KW - Infant
KW - Humans
KW - Child, Preschool
KW - Female
KW - Pregnancy
KW - Wildfires
KW - Pandemics
KW - COVID-19/epidemiology
KW - Environmental Exposure
KW - Mothers
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85167532989
U2 - 10.1016/S2542-5196(23)00134-1
DO - 10.1016/S2542-5196(23)00134-1
M3 - Other Journal Article
C2 - 37558352
SN - 2542-5196
VL - 7
SP - e718-e725
JO - Lancet Planetary health
JF - Lancet Planetary health
IS - 8
ER -
SDG 3 Good Health and Well-being
SDG 13 Climate Action