Climate change and birth outcomes - Evidence from Brazil

Newborn health effects from climate change are a serious threat to the future generations. However, little is known about its estimates for Brazil, a country which still struggles with deep inequalities and poverty.

We used a dataset of almost 45 million observations to ascertain whether there is any impact of both hotter temperatures and shifts from the historical averages on newborns' birth weights across Brazilian municipalities during the period of 2000-2020.

According to our results, both additional hotter days and shifts from the established weather are capable of decreasing birthweight across our samples. Although positive shocks were more frequent, also cold shocks are damaging to perinatal health; and the third trimester was found the most sensitive to weather shocks. Results for precipitation, however, remain unclear. The estimates are especially higher for the population living in isolated and underserved areas.

Our results imply that climate change effects have already arrived in Brazil. In a country that suffers from severe social problems, vulnerable populations should be protected, and coping mechanisms should be widespread to decrease the damaging risks of climatic exposure.