Abstract
Child stunting, closely linked with economic loss in adulthood, is largely irreversible and mainly occurs in poor countries. We estimate the impact of in utero exposure to high temperatures on child height and stunting in China. Experiencing high temperatures during the in utero period, especially during the first and second trimesters, significantly decreases height-for-age z-scores and increases the risk of stunting and severe stunting. Male children and northern children show greater responses to hot days during pregnancy. Suggestive evidence indicates that birth outcomes, household income, and parental investments may be potential channels underlying the high temperature–child height relationship. Without mitigation and adaptation measures by governments and individuals, future climate change will continue to undermine children’s development. Policymakers should pay increasing attention to pregnant women and take interventions during pregnancy to prevent the persistently harmful effects of high temperatures on child growth.
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Notes
The survey does not include **njiang, Tibet, Qinghai, Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, and Hainan.
According to Deschenes et al. (2009) and Hu and Li (2019), we define the length of the pregnancy period as 9 months. Additionally, the median length of pregnancy for Asian women is 9 months (Patel et al., 2004). Given the fact that we cannot obtain information on the exact birth date and the length of pregnancy, our estimated results may be biased due to this measurement error. Thus, the impact of in utero exposure to high temperatures on child height is lower in this study (Hu and Li, 2019).
A HAZis calculated by the following formula: \({{H}_{i}-{MH}_{r}}{{SD}_{r}}\). \({H}_{i}\) is a child’s height. \({MH}_{r}\) and \({SD}_{r}\) are the median height and SDs of the international reference population.
We calculate the average number of hot days during pregnancy for all samples based on the daily average temperature. Therefore, the average number of high-temperature days during pregnancy is rare. The number of hot days is consistent with Ai and Tan (2023) and Hua et al. (2023). The number of high-temperature days during pregnancy varies from 0 to 47, indicating large variations.
We also run logit and probit regressions on stunting indicators. Our main findings remain robust. The results estimated by logit and probit regressions are presented in Table 10 in the Appendix.
After the inclusion of other meteorological variables, the statistical significance of temperature variables increases. Therefore, we test the robustness of the results by using alternative measures of the meteorological control variables as control variables and re-estimating Eq. (2). The satellite-monitored land surface meteorological data is obtained from MODIS products. The population-weighted meteorological variables use the proportion of the population of each city in the total population of each province as the weight.
Hukou is a registration system and proof of identity for every citizen. Hukou is closely related to citizens’ public services, including public education, health care, and housing. Hukou is divided into urban Hukou and rural Hukou. We divide the northern and southern regions by the Huai River and the Qinling Mountain ranges.
The temperature z-score is calculated by subtracting the difference between the temperature values and the mean and then dividing by the SDs.
The culling effect suggests that the surviving fetuses tend to be stronger and healthier because of the death of fragile fetuses.
According to the Seventh National Population Census Bulletin issued by the National Bureau of Statistics, China’s population aged 0–14 was approximately 253.38 million in 2020.
WAZ is calculated in the same way as HAZ. Height is replaced with weight.
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Funding
Ai received from the Major Research Project in Philosophy and Social Sciences of the Ministry of Education (No. 23JZD021), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 71974054), and the Natural Science Foundation of Hunan Province (No. 2023JJ10017), which fund research related to environmental and health economics. Tan received from the Postgraduate Scientific Research Innovation Project of Hunan Province (No.CX20230384).
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Conceptualization: Hongshan Ai, **aoqing Tan; methodology: Hongshan Ai, **aoqing Tan; formal analysis and investigation: **aoqing Tan, Hongshan Ai; writing—original draft preparation: **aoqing Tan, Hongshan Ai; writing—review and editing: **aoqing Tan, Hongshan Ai; funding acquisition: Hongshan Ai, **aoqing Tan; resources: Hongshan Ai; supervision: Hongshan Ai, **aoqing Tan.
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Ai and Tan declare that they have no relevant material or financial interest in the research described in “The impact of early-life exposure to high temperatures on child development: evidence from China”.
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Appendix
Appendix
National geographical distribution of average temperature in 1995, 2000, 2005, and 2010, respectively
Distribution of height and HAZ
Distribution of the number of days in each high temperature bin per year (360 days) from 1995 to 2010
Distribution of the number of days in each temperature bin during pregnancy (9 months) in the estimation sample
Distribution of the annual average days in each high temperature interval in our sample in 2010 and in 2040–2099. The bar represents the annual average days and the changes in the annual average days
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Ai, H., Tan, X. The impact of early-life exposure to high temperatures on child development: evidence from China. Popul Environ 46, 18 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11111-024-00458-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11111-024-00458-3