Paper details
| Paper authors | Carrie Ngongo, Donal Bisanzio, Gabriella Corrigan, Karl B. Angendu, Alisha Smith-Arthur, Brian Hutchinson, Pierre Akilimali |
| In panel on | Building Climate-Resilient Health Systems in Humanitarian Crises: Examples from Research and Practice |
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Abstract
Evidence connecting extreme heat to maternal and newborn health outcomes is needed at country level, especially in tropical areas. DHIS2 collects aggregated population health data in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Drawing from DHIS2 records of 22.7 million DRC births 2018-2023, spatio-temporal modeling assessed associations between maternal mortality, stillbirth, and neonatal mortality and same-month, remotely sensed temperature, precipitation, anomalous high temperature (>95th percentile), and anomalous heavy precipitation (>95th percentile), controlling for month, year, remoteness, and health zone. Temperatures >34°C and anomalous heavy precipitation were strongly associated with increases in same-month stillbirth and maternal mortality and less strongly associated with neonatal mortality. The stillbirth rate rose by 2.3/1,000 births for every degree increase above 34°C or by 5.9/1,000 births in months >95th percentile. Maternal mortality rose by 27.3 deaths/100,000 live births for every degree increase above 34°C or by 95.3 deaths/100,000 live births in months >95th percentile. Months with anomalous heavy precipitation were associated with an increase of 5.4 stillbirths/1,000 births and with 120 maternal deaths/100,000 live births. Risk-based planning, geographic targeting, and stakeholder coordination are urgently required for appropriate, context-specific responses in the face of projected warming and rainfall changes.
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