Effect of Heat Stress on the Risk of Pregnancy Termination in 33 Countries of Sub-Saharan Africa

David A. Sánchez Páez , Universidad de Valladolid
Roman Hoffmann, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)

Rising temperatures in sub-Saharan Africa represent one of the most critical environmental challenges of the 21st century. Climate change is a critical determinant of health, with far-reaching impacts on vulnerable populations, especially pregnant women and their unborn children. Maternal and fetal health are particularly sensitive to climate-induced stressors, such as extreme heat and extreme weather events stress. The objective of this study is to investigate to what extent the relative risk for pregnancy termination has been changing with heat stress in 33 countries of sub-Saharan Africa and if access to cooling mechanisms allow counteracting the effects of heat stress. The analysis will also focus on potential impact of heterogeneity for the risk of pregnancy termination and the effect of confounding risk factors contributing to an increased risk for women. To address our objective, we used logistic regressions, combining climate and pregnancy termination data from two different sources: ERA5-Land post-processed data and the Demographic and Health Surveys Program. We assessed heat stress using the proportion of days with temperatures one, one-and-a-half, or two standard deviations above the average temperature for a given month. Our preliminary results suggest that heat stress increases the risk of pregnancy termination. Additionally, we found that the risk of pregnancy termination increases with the intensity of heat stress. The estimated risk is higher when the proportion of days with atypical temperatures corresponds to hotter days. Our findings confirm the relationship between heat stress and pregnancy termination, particularly in a context of accelerating climate change and environmental vulnerability.

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 Presented in Session P61. Flash Session Temperature Extremes, Mortality and Reproductive Health