Ambient Temperature and Birthweight in Latin American Cities

BAKHTSIYARAVA, MARYIA; ORTIGOZA, ANA; BRAVERMAN, ARIELA; KEPHART, JOSIAH; RODRÍGUEZ LÓPEZ, SANTIAGO; RODRIGUEZ HERNANDEZ, JORDAN; DIEZ-ROUX, ANA V.; SÁNCHEZ, BRISA

Atlanta

Congreso; 2022 PAA - Population Association of America ? Annual Meeting; 2022

Population Association of America

Extreme temperatures can lead to adverse pregnancy and birth outcomes, including low birth weight. Studies on the impact of temperature on birthweight have been inconclusive due to methodological challenges related to operationalizing temperature exposure, the definitions of exposure windows, accounting for gestational age, and a limited geographic scope. We combine data on individual-level live births (N≈25 million births) from urban areas in Brazil, Chile, and Mexico from 2005-2015 from the SALURBAL study (Urban Health in Latin America) with high-resolution daily temperature data. We examined associations between full-term birthweight and average temperature during gestation using distributed lag non-linear models. We find that higher-than-average temperatures during the entire gestational period are associated with decreases in birthweight, particularly in Mexico and Brazil. The cumulative effect of temperature on birthweight is mostly driven by exposure to higher-than-average temperatures during the last months of gestation – during months 7-9 of gestation the associations between temperature and birthweight were of greatest magnitude.