Latest news with #ZacharyWagner
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Tropical cyclones led to rise in infant deaths in these countries, new research shows
LOS ANGELES – Families across dozens of countries are preparing this week as another hurricane season begins. However, a new study reveals even weaker tropical storms can have deadly impacts on infants and unborn children. Health economist Zachary Wagner, a University of Southern California professor, has previously studied war-torn countries and how children are affected by conflict. This latest research, published in Science Advances a few weeks before the start of the 2025 hurricane season, is part of a look at how climate and weather disasters can upend a child's life before it even begins. "There are a lot of other types of events that kind of have similar effects on our society, and natural disasters, large hurricanes are one of them," Wagner told FOX Weather. "We've also been studying things like floods and heat waves and things like that. But hurricanes really can have this devastating effect. And so we thought that kids living in an environment where a hurricane happens, like how does the health of these kids change? How long do these effects last? Is it similar to the effect of conflict?" 2025 Atlantic Hurricane Season Outlook: Here's How Active This Year Could Be Without El Nino, La Nina Patterns Wagner and other researchers examined the effects of tropical storm exposure from 2002 to 2021 for seven of the most heavily exposed low- and middle-income countries in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean, including Madagascar, India, Bangladesh, Cambodia, the Philippines, the Dominican Republic and Haiti. A tropical cyclone modeling expert helped create the wind speed for a 10-kilometer by 10-kilometer cell for these countries. Then the team looked at the child health records from the Demographic and Health Surveys Program, which was completed every 5 years across 90 countries. The results showed that, on average, exposure to a tropical cyclone in utero or during the first year of life was associated with an additional 4.4 infant deaths per 1,000 live births – an 11% increase. The sharp increase was driven by increased deaths in Bangladesh, the Dominican Republic and Haiti, which all saw more than 10 deaths per 1,000 live births. Risks to these children were the greatest in the first year after a cyclone, according to the study. However, the deaths around the time of the cyclone were not explained by common health risks following natural disasters. "We thought that it would be things like healthcare utilization, but it could be things like spread of disease after a tropical cyclone happens," Wagner said. "There's often flooding, there's spread of diarrhea illness, respiratory illness, things that are leading causes of death rates around the world."Wagner said the research team is devising a new method to determine why even tropical storms are leading to higher infant mortality. Economic health researchers will need to utilize different data in the coming years. The Demographic and Health Surveys Program was halted under the current White House administration due to cuts to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) funding. They also hope to understand the differences in infant deaths based on location. "There's big differences across countries," Wagner said. "Where some countries have these kind of large effects, some countries are not seeing much of an effect at all. So, trying to understand what's driving that and that might give us insights into why kids are dying in one place and not another." Hurricane Season 2025: Here Are The Names For Storms You'll See This Season Wagner explained that understanding the deadly impact a tropical cyclone can have on a young child is an important step to protecting them in the future. "There's a limited amount of resources we have to invest in protecting children," Wagner said. "It's important to know which risk factors are the most important so we can allocate resources in the most effective way. No one's very surprised, I don't think, that kids are harmed by tropical cyclones. It's kind of like a 'water is wet' situation. But at the same time, understanding the magnitude of this effect, where it's a problem, where it's not, that's important for investing resources and ranking, kind of ordering where resources should go to protect the most kids." The 2025 Atlantic hurricane season began on June 1 without a named storm for the fourth year in a article source: Tropical cyclones led to rise in infant deaths in these countries, new research shows
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Tropical cyclones may be linked to infant mortality in at-risk low- and middle-income countries, new research suggests
Exposure to tropical cyclones could have an impact on young babies' ability to survive in poorer countries, scientists have found. A mother living through a tropical cyclone while pregnant, or a infant living through a tropical cyclone during the first year of life, may be associated with higher infant mortality when combining data from seven low- and middle-income countries, according to a paper published on Wednesday in Science Advances. MORE: Black infant mortality rate more than double the rate among white infants: CDC Exposure to cyclones was linked to 4.4 additional infant deaths per 1,000 live births in the aggregate study, which included: Madagascar, India, Bangladesh, Cambodia, the Philippines, the Dominican Republic and Haiti. These countries were studied because they, historically, have a higher risk of tropical cyclones. Researchers compared tropical wind field data with more than 1.6 million infant survival records. They identified 148,384 babies who were exposed to tropical cyclones in utero or during the first year of life. Most of these babies (109,051) were exposed to tropical storms, which are the weakest type of tropical cyclone. Bangladesh, the Dominican Republic, and Haiti seemed to generate a higher amount of infantile deaths linked to tropical cyclones -- the 11% increase in infant mortality was mostly driven data from those countries, Zachary Wagner, an associate professor at the University of Southern California's Center for Economic and Social Research and co-author of the paper, told ABC News. Researchers did not identify a significant impact of tropical cyclones on infant mortality in India, which had the largest number of people exposed to tropical cyclones. They believe that this result may be due to India having better systems in place to handle storms. The mortality effect on babies seemed to carry over from tropical storm to Category 1 and 2 storms, the researchers said. However, this association was not as pronounced. In the study, they also noted that Category 3 or stronger storms are much rare relative to lower-intensity storms. However, climate scientists predict that storms will become more extreme in the future due to global warming, which could impact vulnerable populations even more, according to the researchers. "So there's no reason to expect this to get a lot better over time, but there is reason to expect this to get worse over time," Wagner said. MORE: Climate change making Atlantic hurricanes twice as likely to strengthen from weak to major intensity in 24 hours Wagner was inspired to study the impact of tropical cyclones on infant mortality following his work on how armed conflict impacts pediatric health in war-torn countries for over a decade, he said. He noted that the paper was partially funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, a part of the National Institute of Health, so the researchers could look into the issue on a large scale. "We started looking at flooding and tropical cyclones, and we're starting to look at heat and all these big weather events that can have these catastrophic effects in a lot of different areas around the globe," Wagner said. The effect of being exposed to tropical cyclones, on average, had a similar effect on infant mortality compared to armed conflict, according to Wagner. "The difference is that there's a lot more armed conflict than there are tropical cyclones, so the overall contribution to child mortality -- the effect is larger," he said. MORE: Extreme weather events prove climate change is already here The article suggested that less baseline vulnerability, better designed structures and better emergency response systems could all contribute to lessening infant mortality influenced by tropical cyclones. The study did not identify statistical differences, either in individual countries or overall, in hospital antenatal care visits or the number of children being born in health care facilities as a result of tropical cyclones. "We don't know which of those is actually explaining the difference, though," Wagner said. "Further research on understanding the mechanisms that are driving these deaths so that we can intervene in an effective way is necessary," Wagner said. In the future, the researchers will also be looking into how other vulnerable populations in the U.S., such as the elderly, can be affected by tropical cyclones -- such as disruptions in medication use or access to healthcare facilities for preventative care, he added. Tropical cyclones may be linked to infant mortality in at-risk low- and middle-income countries, new research suggests originally appeared on
