Geology topics

Kathryn Grace

Publications and source records attributed to Kathryn Grace.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

USGS2021

Exploring strategies for investigating the mechanisms linking climate and individual-level child health outcomes: An analysis of birth weight in Mali

The goal of this article is to consider data solutions to investigate the differential pathways that connect climate/weather variability to child health outcomes. We apply several measures capturing different aspects of climate/weather variability to different time periods of in utero exposure. The measures are designed to capture the complexities of climate-related risks and isolate their impacts based on the timing and duration of exposure. Specifically, we focus on infant birth weight in Mali and consider local weather and environmental conditions associated with the three most frequently posited potential drivers of adverse health outcomes: disease (malaria), heat stress, and food insecurity. We focus this study on Mali, where seasonal trends facilitate the use of measures specifically designed to capture distinct aspects of climate/weather conditions relevant to the potential drivers. Results indicate that attention to the timing of exposures and employing measures designed to capture nuances in each of the drivers provides important insight into climate and birth weight outcomes, especially in the case of factors impacted by precipitation. Results also indicate that high temperatures and low levels of agricultural production are consistently associated with lower birth weights, and exposure to malarious conditions may increase likelihood of nonlive birth outcomes.

Demography↗

USGS2021

Can we advance individual-level heat-health research through the application of stochastic weather generators?

Individuals living in every region of the world are increasingly vulnerable to negative health outcomes due to extreme heat exposure. Children, in particular, may face long-term consequences associated with heat stress that affect their educational attainment and later life health and well-being. Retrospective individual-level analyses are useful for determining the effects of extreme heat exposure on health outcomes. Typically, future risk is inferred by extrapolating these effects using future warming scenarios that are applied uniformly over space and time without consideration of topographical or climatological gradients. We propose an alternative approach using a stochastic weather generator. This approach employs a 1 °C warming scenario to produce an ensemble of plausible future weather scenarios, and subsequently a distribution of future health risks. We focus on the effect of global warming on fetal development as measured by birth weight in Ethiopia. We demonstrate that predicted changes in birth weight are sensitive to the evolution of temperatures not quantified in a uniform warming scenario. Distributions of predicted changes in birth weight vary in magnitude and variability depending on geographic and socioeconomic region. We present these distributions alongside results from the uniform warming scenario and discuss the spatiotemporal variability of these predicted changes.

Climatic Change↗

USGS2020

Development and validation of the CHIRTS-daily quasi-global high-resolution daily temperature data set

We present a high-resolution daily temperature data set, CHIRTS-daily, which is derived by merging the monthly Climate Hazards center InfraRed Temperature with Stations climate record with daily temperatures from version 5 of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts Re-Analysis. We demonstrate that remotely sensed temperature estimates may more closely represent true conditions than those that rely on interpolation, especially in regions with sparse in situ data. By leveraging remotely sensed infrared temperature observations, CHIRTS-daily provides estimates of 2-meter air temperature for 1983–2016 with a footprint covering 60°S-70°N. We describe this data set and perform a series of validations using station observations from two prominent climate data sources. The validations indicate high levels of accuracy, with CHIRTS-daily correlations with observations ranging from 0.7 to 0.9, and very good representation of heat wave trends.

Scientific Data↗

USGS2015

Linking climate change and health outcomes: Examining the relationship between temperature, precipitation and birth weight in Africa

This paper examined the relationship between birth weight, precipitation, and temperature in 19 African countries. We matched recorded birth weights from Demographic and Health Surveys covering 1986 through 2010 with gridded monthly precipitation and temperature data derived from satellite and ground-based weather stations. Observed weather patterns during various stages of pregnancy were also used to examine the effect of temperature and precipitation on birth weight outcomes. In our empirical model we allowed the effect of weather factors to vary by the dominant food production strategy (livelihood zone) in a given region as well as by household wealth, mother's education and birth season. This allowed us to determine if certain populations are more or less vulnerable to unexpected weather changes after adjusting for known covariates. Finally we measured effect size by observing differences in birth weight outcomes in women who have one low birth weight experience and at least one healthy birth weight baby. The results indicated that climate does indeed impact birth weight and at a level comparable, in some cases, to the impact of increasing women's education or household electricity status.

Global Environmental Change↗