Rainfall variations affect children's health in Bangladesh: Study

Variations or fluctuations in rainfall affect children's health in Bangladesh, said a new study that used three rounds of household survey data from across the country.

The study analysed children in utero, during pregnancy period, and (their mothers') exposure to rainfall variations. It showed how rainfall variations affected livelihood of the households, which ultimately affected growth of the children after birth.

As the pregnant mothers in the areas with rainfall variations could not get necessary nutrition, the malnutrition circulated to their children, according to the study.

However, climate finance reduced such health adversities in the affected regions. Health situation of the children was found better where financial interventions - climate financing projects related to adaptation and mitigation - were implemented.

The study, titled 'Health Effects of Climate Change and Mitigating Effects of Climate Policy: Evidence from Bangladesh', was published on the 'ADB Economics Working Paper Series' this month.

The study findings were discussed in a roundtable, organised by the Policy Research Institute of Bangladesh (PRI) at its office in the capital on Wednesday.

PRI Chairman Zaidi Sattar presided over the roundtable. Minhaj Mahmud, Senior Economist of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and author of the study, presented the keynote paper explaining the study findings. Bazlul Haque Khondker, PRI Research Director, Ananta Neelim, senior lecturer of Economics and HDR Coordinator of Tasmanian School of Business and Economics at University of Tasmania, Zahidul Quayyum Professor of Health Economics and Director Research of BRAC James P. Grant School of Public Health at BRAC University, and Ashikur Rahman, PRI Principal Economist, were the panel discussants.

Khurshid Alam, PRI Executive Director, gave the closing remarks.

"Our results first inform that in-utero exposure to rainfall variations significantly reduces the exposed children's anthropometric outcomes, especially their height-for-age (stunting) and weight-for-age (underweight) scores," Minhaj Mahmud said in his presentation.

"We then identify that climate financing projects related to adaptation and mitigation have some mitigating effects on such adversities, by improving children's anthropometric outcomes," he added.

This directly refers to the fetal origin hypothesis that states that in-utero and neonatal exposure to adverse events can reduce later-life health outcomes, according to the study.

Such adverse events, like rainfall variations, also directly affect agricultural production and income-generating opportunities. The affected households may have lower means to provide food and nutrients to everyone, including pregnant women. This, in turn, may result in lower health outcomes for their children, he explained.

The study focused on children aged 0-60 months. It used data of three rounds of the Bangladesh Integrated Household Survey (BIHS): 2011-12, 2015 and 2018-19, for children's health outcome variables.

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