Save the Future: Climate Change is a Threat to Child Health and Nutrition

Background: Children are more vulnerable than adults to climate-related health threats, but reviews examining how climate change affects human health have been mainly descriptive and lack an assessment of the magnitude of health effects children face. This is the first systematic review and meta-analysis that identifies which climate health relationships pose the greatest threats to children. Objectives: We reviewed epidemiologic studies to analyse various child health outcomes due to climate change and identify the relationships with the largest effect size. We identify population-specific risks and provide recommendations for future research. Methods: We searched four large online databases for observational studies published up to 5 January 2023 following PRISMA (systematic review) guidelines. We evaluated each included study individually and aggregated relevant quantitative data. We used quantitative data in our meta-analysis, where we standardised effect sizes and compared them among different groupings of climate variables and health outcomes.