Climatic Influences on Women’s Health and Mobility in Sub-Saharan Africa

Clark Gray, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Douglas Hopping , University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Varun Goel, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

A growing literature has investigated the consequences of climate change and variability for population-level outcomes in the developing world, but adult morbidity and temporary migration have as of yet received little attention, in part due to data limitations. We use 68 DHS surveys from 18 African countries to investigate the consequences of temperature and precipitation anomalies for women's nutritional status and temporary migration. Preliminary results for nutrition indicate that both hot and cool periods have negative consequences for women's health. We will extend these results to test for vulnerability across subpopulations and also replicate them for temporary migration. Of pedagogical interest, this research is being implemented as part of a new research-based class for undergraduates who learn to use Stata, QGIS and the IPUMS interface.

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 Presented in Session 234. Climate Change and Population Health