Psychological responses to political hostility: a study on aggression, bullying, and well-being in Qatar

In 2017, the Gulf crisis led to a blockade that severely restricted Qatar's air, land, and sea access. This political crisis had far-reaching consequences, particularly affecting cross-national families and children. This qualitative analysis explores the effects of the blockade's political instability on individuals and families, specifically for Qatari citizens married to non-Qatari spouses and their cross-national children. Applying the General Aggression Model and Social Learning Theory, we interviewed 24 individuals residing in Qatar from nations directly affected by the crisis (Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates). Two main themes emerged: first, the characteristics of aggressive and bullying behaviour, and second, the impacts on the well-being of cross-national families. The results showed that Qatari women and their children suffered disproportionately due to gender-based citizenship rights issues. The impacts on their well-being included heightened anxiety, depression, feelings of danger, uncertainty, and division within individuals, families, and communities. Recommendations include increasing collaborative efforts between governments, educational institutions, and community-based organizations, which are crucial to addressing aggressive and bullying behaviour across all age groups fostering a more harmonious and resilient society.

Temperature exposure and sleep duration: Evidence from time use surveys

The Earth's climate is projected to warm significantly in the 21st century, and this will affect human societies in many ways. Since sleep is a basic human need and part of everyone's life, the question of how temperature affects human sleep naturally arises. This paper examines the effect of daily mean temperature on sleep duration using nationally representative Hungarian time use surveys between 1976 and 2010. Compared to a day with an average temperature of 5-10 °C, colder temperatures do not influence sleep duration. However, as daily mean temperatures rise, sleep duration starts to strongly decline. The effect of a hot (>25 °C) day is -13.3 minutes, but if preceded by a few other hot days, the effect is even stronger, -24.7 minutes. The estimated sleep loss is especially large on weekends and public holidays, for older individuals, and men. Combining the estimated effects with temperature projections of twenty-four climate models shows that the warming climate will substantially decrease sleep duration. The projected impacts are especially large when taking into account the effects of heatwave days. This study also shows that different groups in society are likely to be affected in significantly different ways by a warming climate.

Examining the non-linear association between ambient temperature and mental health of elderly adults in the community: evidence from Guangzhou, China

The association between ambient temperature and mental health has been explored previously. However, research on the psychological effect of temperature in vulnerable groups and neighborhood scales have been scarce. Based on the survey and temperature data collected from 20 neighborhoods in Guangzhou, China, this study estimated the association between ambient temperature and community mental health among the elderly, adopting a fixed-effects methodology. According to this empirical analysis, compared to a comfortable temperature range of 20℃-25℃, measures of worse mental health among elderly were significant in high and low temperatures with increases in negative outcomes observable at both ends of the temperature range, leading to the U-shaped relationship. Second, the association between ambient temperature and worse mental health was found in the subcategories of gender, income, and symptom events. Specifically, from the hot temperature aspect, elderly males were more sensitive than elderly females. The effect on the low was far more than on the middle-high income group, and the probability of each symptom of the elderly's mental health significantly increased. From the cool temperature aspect, the temperature in the range of 5ºC-10ºC was significantly associated with the probability of some symptoms (feeling down, not calm, downheartedness, and unhappiness) and the middle-high income group. Our research enriches the empirical research on ambient temperature and mental health from a multidisciplinary perspective and suggests the need for healthy aging and age-friendly planning in Chinese settings.

Understanding the global subnational migration patterns driven by hydrological intrusion exposure

Amid the escalating global climatic challenges, hydrological risks significantly influence human settlement patterns, underscoring the imperative for an in-depth comprehension of hydrological change's ramifications on human migration. However, predominant research has been circumscribed to the national level. The study delves into the nonlinear effects of hydrological risks on migration dynamics in 46,776 global subnational units. Meanwhile, leveraging remote sensing, we procured globally consistent metrics of hydrological intrusion exposure, offering a holistic risk assessment encompassing hazard, exposure, and vulnerability dimensions, thus complementing previous work. Here, we show that exposure is the primary migration driver, surpassing socioeconomic factors. Surrounding disparities further intensified exposure's impact. Vulnerable groups, especially the economically disadvantaged and elderly, tend to remain in high-risk areas, with the former predominantly migrating within proximate vicinities. The nonlinear analysis delineates an S-shaped trajectory for hydrological exposure, transitioning from resistance to migration and culminating in entrapment, revealing dependence on settlement resilience and adaptability.

A Nationwide Survey Following the Devastating 2022 Floods in Pakistan: Current State of Knowledge, Attitude, and Perception Toward Climate Change and Its Health Consequences

BACKGROUND

 Climate change (CC) persists as a critical public health concern, vividly demonstrated by Pakistan's severe unprecedented flooding from June to October 2022. The interplay between floods and CC highlights the urgent need to comprehend their complex dynamics. Given Pakistan's significant geographical vulnerability to CC events, assessing public awareness of CC becomes essential. This study aims to evaluate public knowledge, attitudes, and perception (KAP) regarding CC and its implications for overall health, reflecting onto governmental policies and community-based guidelines and enhancing preparedness for future natural calamities of similar magnitude.

METHODS

 A nationwide cross-sectional survey of Pakistani adults covering all provinces of the country was conducted from January to March 2023 using a prevalidated questionnaire. A purposive sampling strategy was used to enroll participants in the study. Where appropriate, the chi-square test or Fisher's exact test was used to compare KAP among the sociodemographic groups. Multivariate analysis was used to explore predictors of knowledge. Crude and adjusted odds ratios (ORs) were calculated considering a p value of ≤0.05 as significant.

RESULTS

 Among the 714 respondents, 265 (37.1%) of the respondents' residential areas were affected by the floods in Pakistan. A total of 663 (92.9%) of the participants had heard of CC, with 302 (42.3%) choosing "social media/WhatsApp" as their source of information. Increased flooding and changes in rainfall patterns were selected by 679 (95.1%) and 661 (92.6%) participants, respectively, as the most recognized CC. "Deforestation" was the most indicated reason for CC by 675 (94.5%) participants. Multivariate analysis revealed that females (OR: 1.31, 95% CI: 1.16-2.00; p < 0.001), individuals who were affected by recent floods (OR: 1.13, 95% CI: 1.05-3.34; p = 0.003), and individuals who were medical students/healthcare workers (OR: 1.49, 95% CI: 1.24-2.48; p < 0.001) had greater knowledge of CC than their counterparts.

CONCLUSIONS

 The study reported an encouraging prevalence of knowledge of CC, positive attitudes, and practices toward CC, with an interest in learning and doing more to address the health effects of CC. With the ongoing global CC and a monsoon season forecast of similar intensity for the years to come in Pakistan, identifying groups with less knowledge of CC warrants a targeted education program to maximize awareness. Based on the study findings, social media platforms and interventions in educational institutes should be essential to mitigate the CC events in Pakistan and other vulnerable regions in the area.

Burning Question: How Does Our Brain Process Positive and Negative Cues Associated with Thermosensation?

Whether it is the dramatic suffocating sensation from a heat wave in the summer or the positive reinforcement arising from a hot drink on a cold day; we can certainly agree that our thermal environment underlies our daily rhythms of sensation. Extensive research has focused on deciphering the central circuits responsible for conveying the impact of thermogenesis on mammalian behavior. Here, we revise the recent literature responsible for defining the behavioral correlates that arise from thermogenic fluctuations in mammals. We transition from the physiological significance of thermosensation to the circuitry responsible for the autonomic or behavioral responses associated with it. Subsequently, we delve into the positive and negative valence encoded by thermoregulatory processes. Importantly, we emphasize the crucial junctures where reward, pain, and thermoregulation intersect, unveiling a complex interplay within these neural circuits. Finally, we briefly outline fundamental questions that are pending to be addressed in the field. Fully deciphering the thermoregulatory circuitry in mammals will have far-reaching medical implications. For instance, it may lead to the identification of novel targets to overcome thermal pain or allow the maintenance of our core temperature in prolonged surgeries.

Climate change and women's mental health in two vulnerable communities of Bangladesh: An ethnographic study

Climate change is one of the most significant challenges humanity faces in the 21st century, with its health impacts being profoundly felt in the most vulnerable countries. However, the mental health impacts of climate change, particularly concerning social inequality and gender dynamics, are less documented in the Global South. This paper focuses on the impact of climate change on women's mental health in two vulnerable communities in Bangladesh. This study employed qualitative methods, including, in-depth interviews, and focus group discussions (FGDs). The communities were selected based on their vulnerability to climate change. A total of 80 participants were selected using snowball sampling, and 55 interviews and 6 FGDs were conducted. Women are particularly vulnerable to climate change impacts on mental health due to their gender roles and responsibilities. Responsible for taking care of their families, they have to face additional challenges due to climate change impacts, such as increased workload, food insecurity, and social insecurity when their husband migrates to the cities for jobs. Women also face social and cultural barriers, which exacerbate their vulnerability to climate change impacts on mental health. Socioeconomic and environmental determinants appear to be embedded and lead to psychological suffering in relation to social roles and gender norms. Interventions should be designed to address the specific needs and challenges faced by women in these communities. Policymakers should take a gender-sensitive approach to address the mental health impacts of climate change in these communities. This study contributes to the growing body of research on the gendered impacts of climate change with a trajectory approach and provides insights for future research in this area.

Anthropogenic warming is a key climate indicator of rising urban fire activity in China

China, one of the most populous countries in the world, has suffered the highest number of natural disaster-related deaths from fire. On local scales, the main causes of urban fires are anthropogenic in nature. Yet, on regional to national scales, little is known about the indicators of large-scale co-varying urban fire activity in China. Here, we present the China Fire History Atlas (CFHA), which is based on 19 947 documentary records and represents fires in urban areas of China over the twentieth century (1901-1994). We found that temperature variability is a key indicator of urban fire activity in China, with warmer temperatures being correlated with more urban fires, and that this fire-temperature relationship is seasonally and regionally explicit. In the early twentieth century, however, the fire-temperature relationship was overruled by war-related fires in large urban areas. We further used the fire-temperature relationship and multiple emissions scenarios to project fire activity across China into the twenty-first century. Our projections show a distinct increase in future urban fire activity and fire-related economic loss. Our findings provide insights into fire-climate relationships in China for densely-populated areas and on policy-relevant time scales and they contribute spatial coverage to efforts to improve global fire models.

Climate change drove the route shift of the ancient Silk Road in two distinct ways

Although climate change has convincingly been linked to the evolution of human civilization on different temporal scales, its role in influencing the spatial patterns of ancient civilizations has rarely been investigated. The northward shift of the ancient Silk Road (SR) route from the Tarim Basin (TB) to the Junggar Basin during ∼420-850 CE provides the opportunity to investigate the relationship between climate change and the spatial evolution of human societies. Here, we use a new high-resolution chironomid-based temperature reconstruction from arid China, combined with hydroclimatic and historical datasets, to assess the possible effects of climate fluctuations on the shift of the ancient SR route. We found that a cooling/drying climate in the TB triggered the SR route shift during ∼420-600 CE. However, a warming/wetting climate during ∼600-850 CE did not inhibit this shift, but instead promoted it, because of the favorable climate-induced geopolitical conflicts between the Tubo Kingdom and the Tang Dynasty in the TB. Our findings reveal two distinct ways in which climate change drove the spatial evolution of human civilization, and they demonstrate the flexibility of societal responses to climate change.

Climate Change and Mental Health: An Interactive Educational Session

Introduction

Climate change is the single biggest health threat facing humanity, with direct and indirect impacts on mental health, yet health impacts of climate change remain notably absent from most medical school curricula. We describe a timely interactive educational session on climate change and mental health that was implemented and studied on a medical student clinical psychiatry rotation.

Methods

We developed a 1-hour introductory session on the mental health impacts of climate change and potential solutions. The session was delivered to third-year medical students on their 4-week clinical psychiatry rotation and included pre- and postsession survey questions assessing their knowledge, comfort, and readiness regarding the topic.

Results

Seventy students participated in the session, with 49 students completing the pre- and postsession surveys, giving a response rate of 70%. The average score for the four Likert-scale questions on the survey increased from 2.7 presession to 3.9 postsession on a 5-point scale (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree). All questions displayed statistically significant improvement. Qualitative analysis identified knowledge gained about the mental health impacts of climate change as the most important aspect of the session to students.

Discussion

The introductory session effectively filled an urgent need in medical education curricula regarding climate change's effects on human health. Overall, distribution of and improvement upon this timely teaching content can serve a valuable role in medical student education as the effects of climate change, particularly on mental health, continue to progress throughout the century.

Dust and Death: Evidence from the West African Harmattan

Using two decades of data from 12 low-income countries in West Africa, we show that dust carried by harmattan trade winds increases infant and child mortality. Health investments respond to dust exposure, consistent with compensating behaviours. Despite these efforts, surviving children still exhibit negative health impacts. Our data allow us to investigate differential impacts over time and across countries. We find declining impacts over time, suggesting adaptation. Using national-level measures of macroeconomic conditions and health resources, we find suggestive evidence that both economic development and public health improvements have contributed to this adaptation, with health improvements playing a larger role.

The joint effects of mixture exposure to multiple meteorological factors on step count: A panel study in China

The public health burden of increasing extreme weather events has been well documented. However, the influence of meteorological factors on physical activity remains limited. Existing mixture effect methods cannot handle cumulative lag effects. Therefore, we developed quantile g-computation Distributed lag non-linear model (QG-DLNM) by embedding a DLNM into quantile g-computation to allow for the concurrent consideration of both cumulated lag effects and mixture effects. We gathered repeated measurement data from Henan Province in China to investigate both the individual impact of meteorological factor on step counts using a DLNM, and the joint effect using the QG-DLNM. We projected future step counts linked to changes in temperature and relative humidity driven by climate change under three scenarios from the sixth phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project. Our findings indicate there are inversed U-shaped associations for temperature, wind speed, and mixture exposure with step counts, peaking at 11.6 °C in temperature, 2.7 m/s in wind speed, and 30th percentile in mixture exposure. However, there are negative associations between relative humidity and rainfall with step counts. Additionally, relative humidity possesses the highest weights in the joint effect (49% contribution). Compared to 2022s, future step counts are projected to decrease due to temperature changes, while increase due to relative humidity changes. However, when considering both future temperature and humidity changes driven by climate change, the projections indicate a decrease in step counts. Our findings may suggest Chinese physical activity will be negatively influenced by global warming.

Earth at risk: An urgent call to end the age of destruction and forge a just and sustainable future

Human development has ushered in an era of converging crises: climate change, ecological destruction, disease, pollution, and socioeconomic inequality. This review synthesizes the breadth of these interwoven emergencies and underscores the urgent need for comprehensive, integrated action. Propelled by imperialism, extractive capitalism, and a surging population, we are speeding past Earth's material limits, destroying critical ecosystems, and triggering irreversible changes in biophysical systems that underpin the Holocene climatic stability which fostered human civilization. The consequences of these actions are disproportionately borne by vulnerable populations, further entrenching global inequities. Marine and terrestrial biomes face critical tipping points, while escalating challenges to food and water access foreshadow a bleak outlook for global security. Against this backdrop of Earth at risk, we call for a global response centered on urgent decarbonization, fostering reciprocity with nature, and implementing regenerative practices in natural resource management. We call for the elimination of detrimental subsidies, promotion of equitable human development, and transformative financial support for lower income nations. A critical paradigm shift must occur that replaces exploitative, wealth-oriented capitalism with an economic model that prioritizes sustainability, resilience, and justice. We advocate a global cultural shift that elevates kinship with nature and communal well-being, underpinned by the recognition of Earth's finite resources and the interconnectedness of its inhabitants. The imperative is clear: to navigate away from this precipice, we must collectively harness political will, economic resources, and societal values to steer toward a future where human progress does not come at the cost of ecological integrity and social equity.

Short-term high temperature may increase the incidence risk of collective conflicts: A case-crossover study in the Greater Middle East

BACKGROUND

Violent conflict is a formidable global challenge, with long-lasting impacts on individual health and society security. There has been compelling evidence that heat can increase aggression intention on the individual level. However, little is known about the short-term relationship between ambient temperature and collective violent conflicts, especially in less developed regions.

METHOD

We conducted a time-stratified case-crossover study combined with the distributed lag nonlinear model (DLNM) among 247,773 violent conflicts from 29 countries or regions in the Greater Middle East, between 1997 and 2021. Potential modification effects of economic status and climate conditions were explored by stratified analyses. Negative control and sensitivity analyses were also performed to test the robustness of our model.

RESULTS

We observed significant associations between higher temperature and the onset of five categories of violent conflicts. The effects generally occurred within the first several days after exposure. The incidence risks of battles, violence against civilians, explosions/remote violence, protests and riots were 1.60 [95 % confidence interval (CI): 1.31-1.95], 1.82 (95 % CI: 1.37-2.42), 1.24 (95 % CI: 1.08-1.41), 1.16 (95 % CI: 1.09-1.24) and 1.54 (95 % CI: 1.22-1.95) when comparing extreme high temperatures to minimum-risk temperatures. The associations were generally more prominent in areas with lower economic levels and associations in regions of the continental climate are also stronger.

CONCLUSIONS

Our finding reveals novel and concrete evidence that short-term high temperature could increase the risk of multiple forms of violent conflict in the Greater Middle East and provides new insights into the potential short-term mechanisms under the heat-collective violence association.

Climate Change and Children's Health: Building a Healthy Future for Every Child

Observed changes in temperature, precipitation patterns, sea level, and extreme weather are destabilizing major determinants of human health. Children are at higher risk of climate-related health burdens than adults because of their unique behavior patterns; developing organ systems and physiology; greater exposure to air, food, and water contaminants per unit of body weight; and dependence on caregivers. Climate change harms children through numerous pathways, including air pollution, heat exposure, floods and hurricanes, food insecurity and nutrition, changing epidemiology of infections, and mental health harms. As the planet continues to warm, climate change's impacts will worsen, threatening to define the health and welfare of children at every stage of their lives. Children who already bear higher burden of disease because of living in low-wealth households and communities, lack of access to high quality education, and experiencing racism and other forms of unjust discrimination bear greater risk of suffering from climate change hazards. Climate change solutions, advanced through collaborative work of pediatricians, health systems, communities, corporations, and governments lead to immediate gains in child health and equity and build a foundation for generations of children to thrive. This technical report reviews the nature of climate change and its associated child health effects and supports the recommendations in the accompanying policy statement on climate change and children's health.

A nationwide time-series analysis for short-term effects of ambient temperature on violent crime in South Korea

Psychological theories on heat-aggression relationship have existed for decades and recent models suggest climate change will increase violence through varying pathways. Although observational studies have examined the impact of temperature on violent crime, the evidence for associations is primarily limited to coarse temporal resolution of weather and crime (e.g., yearly/monthly) and results from a few Western communities, warranting studies based on higher temporal resolution data of modern systemic crime statistics for various regions. This observational study examined short-term temperature impacts on violent crime using national crime data for the warm months (Jun.-Sep.) across South Korea (2016-2020). Distributed lag non-linear models assessed relative risks (RRs) of daily violent crime counts at the 70th, 90th, and 99th summer temperature percentiles compared to the reference temperature (10th percentile), with adjustments for long-term trends, seasonality, weather, and air pollution. Results indicate potentially non-linear relationships between daily summer temperature (lag0-lag10) and violent crime counts. Violent crimes consistently increased from the lowest temperature and showed the highest risk at the 70th temperature (~ 28.0 °C). The RR at the 70th and 90th percentiles of daily mean temperature (lag0-lag10), compared to the reference, was 1.11 (95% CI 1.09, 1.15) and 1.04 (95% CI 1.01, 1.07), indicating significant associations. Stratified analysis showed significant increases in assault and domestic violence for increases in temperature. The lagged effects, the influences of heat on subsequent crime incidence, did not persist 21 days after the exposure, possibly due to the displacement phenomenon. We found curvilinear exposure-response relationships, which provide empirical evidence to support the psychological theories for heat and violence. Lower public safety through increased violent crime may be an additional public health harm of climate change.

Spread of the cycles: a feedback perspective on the Anthropocene

What propelled the human 'revolutions' that started the Anthropocene? and what could speed humanity out of trouble? Here, we focus on the role of reinforcing feedback cycles, often comprised of diverse, unrelated elements (e.g. fire, grass, humans), in propelling abrupt and/or irreversible, revolutionary changes. We suggest that differential 'spread of the cycles' has been critical to the past human revolutions of fire use, agriculture, rise of complex states and industrialization. For each revolution, we review and map out proposed reinforcing feedback cycles, and describe how new systems built on previous ones, propelling us into the Anthropocene. We argue that to escape a bleak Anthropocene will require abruptly shifting from existing unsustainable 'vicious cycles', to alternative sustainable 'virtuous cycles' that can outspread and outpersist them. This will need to be complemented by a revolutionary cultural shift from maximizing growth to maximizing persistence (sustainability). To achieve that we suggest that non-human elements need to be brought back into the feedback cycles underlying human cultures and associated measures of progress. This article is part of the theme issue 'Evolution and sustainability: gathering the strands for an Anthropocene synthesis'.

US homicide rates increase when resources are scarce and unequally distributed

As homicide rates spike across the United States, researchers nominate diverse causes such as temperature, city greenness, structural racism, inequality, poverty and more. While variation in homicide rates clearly results from multiple causes, many correlation studies lack the systematic theory needed to identify the underlying factors that structure individual motivations. Building on pioneering work in evolutionary human sciences, we propose that when resources are unequally distributed, individuals may have incentives to undertake high-risk activities, including lethal violence, in order to secure material and social capital. Here we evaluate this theory by analysing federal data on homicide rates, poverty and income inequality across all 50 US states for the years 1990, 2000 and 2005-2020. Supporting predictions derived from evolutionary social sciences, we find that the interaction of poverty (scarcity) and inequality (unequal distribution) best explains variation in US homicide rates. Results suggest that the increase in homicide rates during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic are driven in part by these same underlying causes that structure homicide rates across the US over the last 30 years. We suggest that these results provide compelling evidence to expand strategies for reducing homicide rates by dismantling structures that generate and concentrate sustained poverty and economic inequality.

Violence trends in the ancient Middle East between 12,000 and 400 BCE

How did interpersonal violence develop in early human societies? Given that homicide records are only available for the more recent period, much of human history remains outside our purview. In this paper, we study violence trends in the very long run by exploiting a new dataset on cranial trauma and weapon-related wounds from skeletons excavated across the Middle East, spanning the pre-Classical period (around 12,000-400 BCE). The dataset includes more than 3,500 individuals. We find evidence that interpersonal violence peaked during the Chalcolithic period (around 4,500-3,300 BCE). It then steadily declined during the Early and Middle Bronze Ages (around 3,300-1,500 BCE) and increased again between the Late Bronze and the Iron Age (1,500-400 BCE). By documenting variations in violence patterns across a vast temporal and geographical scale in an incredibly rich historical setting, we broaden perspectives on the early history of human conflict.

Assessing resilience of sustainability to climate change in China's cities

Achieving sustainability and coping with climate change are the greatest challenges to human survival and harmonious human-nature relationship. However, there is a lack of research on quantifying the resilience of sustainability to climate change over space and time. Here, a quantification method was developed to evaluate resilient performance of sustainability (includes economic, social, and environmental sub-resilient performance and resilient performance index) to climate change, and performed the first demonstration in China's 280 cities. It was found that resilient performance index of China's sustainability to climate change improved from 2005 to 2017, especially in Southwest China, but 6.8 % of cities showed a decreasing trend. With the improvement of the resilient performance index, the synergy degree among economic, social, and environmental sub-resilient performance scores increased. Economic development and sustainability improvement related to a higher but more disparity of the resilient performance index. This study encourages researchers and policymakers worldwide to focus on resilience of sustainability to climate change to help achieve sustained development and prosperity under climate change.

Too hot to help or too cold to care? On the links between ambient temperature, volunteerism, and civic engagement

We investigated the relationship between ambient temperature and prosocial behaviour in real-life settings. It was guided by two mechanisms of opposite predictions, namely (1) higher temperatures decrease prosociality by harming well-being, and (2) higher temperatures increase prosociality by promoting the embodied cognition of social warmth. In Study 1, U.S. state-level time-series data (2002-2015) supported the first mechanism, with higher temperatures predicting lower volunteer rates through lower well-being. Study 2 furthered the investigation by probing the relationship between neighbourhood temperature and civic engagement of 2268 U.S. citizens. The data partially supported the well-being mechanism and reported findings contradictory to the social embodiment mechanism. Higher temperatures predicted lower interpersonal trust and subsequently lower civic engagement. The unexpected finding hinted at a cognitive effect of heat and a compensatory mechanism in social thermoregulation. We discussed the findings regarding their methodological strengths and weaknesses, with cautions made on ecological fallacies and alternative models.

Climate attribution of interpersonal violence: International evidence

Anthropogenic climate change is increasingly threatening interpersonal violence, yet global evidence for related impacts and potential transmission mechanisms remains limited. We examine whether and how climate change, particularly climate extremes, affects interpersonal violence. Using the panel data of 140 countries and regions from 2000 to 2019, we find that hot and wet extremes precipitated increase in homicide rates globally. Economic level, inequality, and resources scarcity were important intermediaries through which climate extremes affected homicide, while the direct effects still dominated the total effects. We then reveal the heterogeneous effects of climate extremes, further suggesting that poor countries and regions with relatively small contributions to climate change were particularly sensitive to climate extremes. These findings elucidate a strong climate-violence link, helping explain implications of facilitating violence prevention and mitigating climate change.

Modeling analysis of armed conflict risk in sub-Saharan Africa, 2000-2019

Sub-Saharan Africa has suffered frequent outbreaks of armed conflict since the end of the Cold War. Although several efforts have been made to understand the underlying causes of armed conflict and establish an early warning mechanism, there is still a lack of a comprehensive assessment approach to model the incidence risk of armed conflict well. Based on a large database of armed conflict events and related spatial datasets covering the period 2000-2019, this study uses a boosted regression tree (BRT) approach to model the spatiotemporal distribution of armed conflict risk in sub-Saharan Africa. Evaluation of accuracy indicates that the simulated models obtain high performance with an area under the receiver operator characteristic curve (ROC-AUC) mean value of 0.937 and an area under the precision recall curves (PR-AUC) mean value of 0.891. The result of the relative contribution indicates that the background context factors (i.e., social welfare and the political system) are the main driving factors of armed conflict risk, with a mean relative contribution of 92.599%. By comparison, the climate change-related variables have relatively little effect on armed conflict risk, accounting for only 7.401% of the total. These results provide novel insight into modelling the incidence risk of armed conflict, which may help implement interventions to prevent and minimize the harm of armed conflict.

Environmental violence: a tool for planetary health research

From climate change to toxic pollution and the interactive effects of multiple pollution streams, human health is under siege. Human-produced environmental risks to health and wellbeing are high and contributing to patterns of global morbidity, mortality, economic inequality, displacement, and insecurity. The implications of human-produced environmental harms to global health are complex just as are their causes. The concept of environmental violence offers a potentially robust frame for engaging this issue. We argue that a more specified and structured framework and definition of environmental violence-focusing on human-produced harms by way of pollution emissions-is both timely and beneficial for engaging the complexities of global public health. To clarify why and how this is the case, we review the literature for publications that use the term environmental violence and we subsequently propose a specific definition focused on human-produced pollution along with a framework for tracking and analysing environmental violence and its constituent components. Finally, we discuss the potential value of our framework for research and policy making regarding human health.

Inequality in behavioural heat adaptation: an empirical study with mobility data from the transport system in New York City, NY, USA

BACKGROUND

Heat exposure, which can negatively affect human health and wellbeing, is heterogeneous within US cities. However, little is known about who can avoid heat stress by adjusting their everyday behaviour. We aimed to analyse the effect of ambient temperature on mobility, specifically subway (ie, the underground railway system) use, in New York City, NY, USA, during 2014-19.

METHODS

For this empirical study, subway use across New York City was measured with turnstile data from the New York City Metropolitan Transportation Authority between Jan 1, 2014, and Dec 31, 2019. Passenger numbers were then aggregated to the zip code tabulation area (ZCTA) level. Daily observational climate data were obtained from the US National Weather Service between Jan 1, 2014, and Dec 31, 2019. Socioeconomic data at the ZCTA level originated from the American Community Survey 2019. We extracted data on population age, ethnicity, commuting, employment, median household income, rent, and health-insurance coverage. We used a fixed-effects panel-regression model to assess the influence of temperature on subway use in New York City, which was the main outcome of our study.

FINDINGS

We obtained data for 438 subway stations across New York City. After data cleaning and preprocessing, the final aggregated data sample consisted of 238 508 instances of subway use in 1955 days across 6 years for 122 ZCTAs, with 168 days missing in the raw data and 67 days removed as outliers. The results of the fixed-effects panel-regression analysis showed a strong, non-linear effect of daily maximum temperature on subway use. Subway use was highest at 11·5°C and substantially decreased for temperatures that were colder and warmer than that, with reductions reaching 6·5% (95% CI 2·5-10·5) for the coldest temperature (ie, -6·5°C) and 10·5% (6·0-14·0) for the hottest temperature (ie, 34·5°C). Reductions differed between weekdays and weekends, when residents generally had more freedom to adjust their behaviour. Neighbourhoods that were at a socioeconomic disadvantage experienced smaller or no reductions in mobility in heat; mobility increased in neighbourhoods with beach access.

INTERPRETATION

Our study showed that temperature had a strong, non-linear effect on subway use, but the magnitude of the effect on subway use was heterogeneous across areas of the city on warm days. Weaker avoidance of heat stress correlated with less privilege, indicating compounding health risks. Everyday behavioural adaptation to heat is therefore an effect pathway that contributes to unequal heat effects and should be explored in future research.

FUNDING

The Volkswagen Foundation and the Werner Siemens Foundation.

Satellite forecasting of crop harvest can trigger a cross-hemispheric production response and improve global food security

Global food security is increasingly threatened by climate change and regional human conflicts. Abnormal fluctuations in crop production in major exporting countries can cause volatility in food prices and household consumption in importing countries. Here we show that timely forecasting of crop harvest from satellite data over major exporting regions can trigger production response in the opposite hemisphere to offset the short-term fluctuations and stabilize global food supply. Satellite forecasting can reduce the fluctuation extents of country-level prices by 1.1 to 12.5 percentage points for anticipated wheat shortage or surplus in Russia and Ukraine, and even reverse the price shock in importing countries for anticipated soybean shortage in Brazil. Our research demonstrates that by leveraging the seasonal lags in crop calendars between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, operational crop monitoring from satellite data can provide a mechanism to improve global food security.

Nonlinear El Niño impacts on the global economy under climate change

The El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is a consequential climate phenomenon affecting global extreme weather events often with largescale socioeconomic impacts. To what extent the impact affects the macroeconomy, how long the impact lasts, and how the impact may change in a warming climate are important questions for the field. Using a smooth nonlinear climate-economy model fitted with historical data, here we find a damaging impact from an El Niño which increases for a further three years after initial shock, amounting to multi-trillion US dollars in economic loss; we attribute a loss of US$2.1 T and US$3.9 T globally to the 1997-98 and 2015-16 extreme El Niño events, far greater than that based on tangible losses. We find impacts from La Niña are asymmetric and weaker, and estimate a gain of only US$0.06 T from the 1998-99 extreme La Niña event. Under climate change, economic loss grows exponentially with increased ENSO variability. Under a high-emission scenario, increased ENSO variability causes an additional median loss of US$33 T to the global economy at a 3% discount rate aggregated over the remainder of the 21st century. Thus, exacerbated economic damage from changing ENSO in a warming climate should be considered in assessments of mitigation strategies.

Neighbours and relatives: accounting for spatial distribution when testing causal hypotheses in cultural evolution

Many important and interesting hypotheses about cultural evolution are evaluated using cross-cultural correlations: if knowing one particular feature of a culture (e.g. environmental conditions such as temperature, humidity or parasite load) allows you to predict other features (e.g. language features, religious beliefs, cuisine), it is often interpreted as indicating a causal link between the two (e.g. hotter climates carry greater disease risk, which encourages belief in supernatural forces and favours the use of antimicrobial ingredients in food preparation; dry climates make the production of distinct tones more difficult). However, testing such hypotheses from cross-cultural comparisons requires us to take proximity of cultures into account: nearby cultures share many aspects of their environment and are more likely to be similar in many culturally inherited traits. This can generate indirect associations between environment and culture which could be misinterpreted as signals of a direct causal link. Evaluating examples of cross-cultural correlations from the literature, we show that significant correlations interpreted as causal relationships can often be explained as a result of similarity between neighbouring cultures. We discuss some strategies for sorting the explanatory wheat from the co-varying chaff, distinguishing incidental correlations from causal relationships.

The effect of natural disasters on human capital in the United States

Although natural disasters are commonplace, they leave in their wake an enormous amount of damage. The physical damage they cause is immediately apparent, but less obvious is the potential magnitude of disruptions to learning and resulting damage to human capital. Using the universe of Presidential Disaster Declarations in the United States, we show that natural disasters impact a region's human capital both via reductions in learning for students who remain in school as well as a reduction in the years of schooling completed. These effects appear to be scarring and persistent. Quantifying these losses using the implied reduction of lifetime earnings suggests that natural disasters reduce a region's human capital by a similar magnitude as the assessed property damage.

Association of Ambient Temperature With the Prevalence of Intimate Partner Violence Among Partnered Women in Low- and Middle-Income South Asian Countries

Importance

Intimate partner violence (IPV), including physical, sexual, and emotional violence, constitutes a critical public health problem, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. While climate change could escalate violent events, data quantifying its possible association with IPV are scant.

Objective

To evaluate the association of ambient temperature with the prevalence of IPV among partnered women in low- and middle-income countries in South Asia, and to estimate the association of future climate warming with IPV.

Design, Setting, and Participants

This cross-sectional study used data from the Demographic and Health Survey and included 194 871 ever-partnered women aged 15 to 49 years from 3 South Asian countries (India, Nepal, and Pakistan). The study applied the mixed-effect multivariable logistic regression model to investigate the association of ambient temperature with IPV prevalence. The study further modeled the change in IPV prevalence under various future climate change scenarios. The data included in the analyses were collected from October 1, 2010, to April 30, 2018, and the current analyses were performed from January 2, 2022, to July 11, 2022.

Exposure

Annual ambient temperature exposure for each woman, estimated based on an atmospheric reanalysis model of the global climate.

Main Outcomes and Measures

The prevalence of IPV and its types (physical, sexual, and emotional violence) were assessed based on self-reported questionnaires from October 1, 2010, to April 30, 2018, and the changes in the prevalence with climate changes were estimated through the 2090s.

Results

The study included 194 871 ever-partnered women aged 15 to 49 years (mean [SD] age, 35.4 [7.6] years; overall IPV prevalence, 27.0%) from 3 South Asian countries. The prevalence of physical violence was highest (23.0%), followed by emotional (12.5%), and sexual violence (9.5%). The annual temperature ranges were mostly between 20 °C and 30 °C. A significant association was found between high ambient temperature and the prevalence of IPV against women, with each 1 °C increase in the annual mean temperature associated with a mean increase in IPV prevalence of 4.49% (95% CI, 4.20%-4.78%). According to the study's projections under the unlimited emissions scenarios (SSPs [shared socioeconomic pathways], as defined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] 5-8.5), IPV prevalence would increase by 21.0% by the end of the 21st century, while it would only moderately increase under increasingly stricter scenarios (SSP2-4.5 [9.8%] and SSP1-2.6 [5.8%]). In addition, the projected increases in the prevalence of physical (28.3%) and sexual (26.1%) violence were greater than that of emotional violence (8.9%). In the 2090s, India was estimated to experience the highest IPV prevalence increase (23.5%) among the 3 countries, compared with Nepal (14.8%) and Pakistan (5.9%).

Conclusions and Relevance

This cross-sectional, multicountry study provides ample epidemiological evidence to support that high ambient temperature may be associated with the risk of IPV against women. These findings highlight the vulnerabilities and inequalities of women experiencing IPV in low- and middle-income countries in the context of global climate warming.

Climate change is a threat multiplier for violence against children

BACKGROUND

The climate crisis is the biggest threat to the health, development, and wellbeing of the current and future generations. While there is extensive evidence on the direct impacts of climate change on human livelihood, there is little evidence on how children and young people are affected, and even less discussion and evidence on how the climate crisis could affect violence against children.

PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING

In this commentary, we review selected research to assess the links between the climate crisis and violence against children.

METHODS

We employ a social-ecological perspective as an overarching framework to organize findings from the literature and call attention to increased violence against children as a specific, yet under-examined, direct and indirect consequence of the climate crisis.

RESULTS

Using such a perspective, we examine how the climate crisis exacerbates the risk of violence against children at the continually intersecting and interacting levels of society, community, family, and the individual levels. We propose increased risk of armed conflict, forced displacement, poverty, income inequality, disruptions in critical health and social services, and mental health problems as key mechanisms linking the climate crisis and heightened risk of violence against children. Furthermore, we posit that the climate crisis serves as a threat multiplier, compounding existing vulnerabilities and inequities within populations and having harsher consequences in settings, communities, households, and for children already experiencing adversities.

CONCLUSIONS

We conclude with a call for urgent efforts from researchers, practitioners, and policymakers to further investigate the specific empirical links between the climate crisis and violence against children and to design, test, implement, fund, and scale evidence-based, rights-based, and child friendly prevention, support, and response strategies to address violence against children.

Acute and chronic impacts of heat stress on planetary health

Heat waves are increasing in intensity, frequency, and duration causing significant heat stress in all living organisms. Heat stress has multiple negative effects on plants affecting photosynthesis, respiration, growth, development, and reproduction. It also impacts animals leading to physiological and behavioral alterations, such as reduced caloric intake, increased water intake, and decreased reproduction and growth. In humans, epidemiological studies have shown that heat waves are associated with increased morbidity and mortality. There are many biological effects of heat stress (structural changes, enzyme function disruption, damage through reactive oxygen or nitrogen species). While plants and animals can mitigate some of these effects through adaptive mechanisms such as the generation of heat shock proteins, antioxidants, stress granules, and others, these mechanisms may likely be inadequate with further global warming. This review summarizes the effects of heat stress on plants and animals and the adaptative mechanisms that have evolved to counteract this stress.

Violence in the Emergency Department: What Can We Do?

BACKGROUND

 Violence in healthcare settings is a problem around the world, with hospital emergency departments (EDs) being the most common sites. The most important step in preventing violence is to determine the causes and characteristics of the problem. However, there is not enough information in the literature about the particular areas of EDs in which violence occurs.

OBJECTIVES

 We aim to produce results that can contribute to violence prevention activities by gathering detailed information about violent incidents in EDs and the intensity of this violence.

METHODS

 Our study was planned as a retrospective and descriptive study at a tertiary emergency medicine clinic. Our data include "code white" data between January 1, 2015, and December 31, 2019. The characteristics and types of violence were recorded and categorized.

RESULTS

 We evaluated 141 incidences of severe violence reported during the study period. We determined that 55.2% of the violence was directed at physicians and 21.3% at nurses. Verbal violence was by far the most common type of violence, comprising 98.6% of the cases. We found that the violence cases occurred in examination rooms, observation areas, and triage units of the ED (58.2%, 24.1%, and 11.3%, respectively).

CONCLUSION

 We determined that violence in the ED is most common after standard working hours, and the most frequent exposure to violence is in examination rooms, observation areas, and triage areas. These findings may be useful in determining preventive measures in EDs, where violence is most common.

Exploring the worldwide impact of COVID-19 on conflict risk under climate change

Objectives

Understand whether and how the COVID-19 pandemic affects the risk of different types of conflict worldwide in the context of climate change.

Methodology

Based on the database of armed conflict, COVID-19, detailed climate, and non-climate data covering the period 2020-2021, we applied Structural Equation Modeling specifically to reorganize the links between climate, COVID-19, and conflict risk. Moreover, we used the Boosted Regression Tree method to simulate conflict risk under the influence of multiple factors.

Findings

The transmission risk of COVID-19 seems to decrease as the temperature rises. Additionally, COVID-19 has a substantial worldwide impact on conflict risk, albeit regional and conflict risk variations exist. Moreover, when testing a one-month lagged effect, we find consistency across regions, indicating a positive influence of COVID-19 on demonstrations (protests and riots) and a negative relationship with non-state and violent conflict risk.

Conclusion

COVID-19 has a complex effect on conflict risk worldwide under climate change.

Implications

Laying the theoretical foundation of how COVID-19 affects conflict risk and providing some inspiration for the implementation of relevant policies.

A drop of love? Rainfall shocks and spousal abuse: Evidence from rural Peru

We investigate whether exposure to rainfall shocks affects the experience of physical intimate partner violence (P-IPV) among women in rural areas of the Peruvian Andes. Using data from the Demographic and Health Surveys over 2005-2014, we track changes in the probability that a woman experiences recent instances of P-IPV after being exposed to a rainfall shock during the last cropping season. Our results indicate that the probability that a woman experiences P-IPV increases by 8.5 percentage points (65 percent) after exposure to a dry, but not a wet, shock during the cropping season. We identify two complementary causal pathways of this effect: increased economic insecurity and poverty-related stress that deteriorates men's emotional well-being and mental health, and reduced female empowerment that affects women's ability to negotiate their preferences within the relationship.

Animal conflicts escalate in a warmer world

The potential for climate change to affect animal behaviour is widely recognized, yet its possible consequences on aggressiveness are still unclear. If warming and drought limit the availability of food resources, climate change may elicit an increase of intraspecific conflicts stemming from resource competition. By measuring aggressivity indices in a group-living, herbivorous mammal (the Apennine chamois Rupicapra pyrenaica ornata) in two sites differing in habitat quality, and coupling them with estimates of plant productivity, we investigated whether harsh climatic conditions accumulated during the growing season influenced agonistic contests at feeding via vegetation-mediated effects, and their interaction with the site-specific habitat quality. We focused on females, which exhibit intra-group contest competition to access nutritious food patches. Accounting for confounding variables, we found that (1) the aggression rate between foraging individuals increased with the warming accumulated over previous weeks; (2) the probability to deliver more aggressive behaviour patterns toward contestants increased with decreasing rainfall recorded in previous weeks; (3) the effects of cumulative warming and drought on aggressivity indices occurred at time windows spanning 15-30 days, matching those found on vegetation productivity; (4) the effects of unfavourable climatic conditions via vegetation growth on aggressivity were independent of the site-specific habitat quality. Simulations conducted on our model species predict a ~50 % increase in aggression rate following the warming projected over the next 60 years. Where primary productivity will be impacted by warming and drought, our findings suggest that the anticipated climate change scenarios may trigger bottom-up consequences on intraspecific animal conflicts. This study opens the doors for a better understanding of the multifactorial origin of aggression in group-living foragers, emphasising how the escalation of agonistic contests could emerge as a novel response of animal societies to ongoing global warming.

Non-angry aggressive arousal and angriffsberietschaft: A narrative review of the phenomenology and physiology of proactive/offensive aggression motivation and escalation in people and other animals

Human aggression typologies largely correspond with those for other animals. While there may be no non-human equivalent of angry reactive aggression, we propose that human proactive aggression is similar to offense in other animals' dominance contests for territory or social status. Like predation/hunting, but unlike defense, offense and proactive aggression are positively reinforcing, involving dopamine release in accumbens. The drive these motivational states provide must suffice to overcome fear associated with initiating risky fights. We term the neural activity motivating proactive aggression "non-angry aggressive arousal", but use "angriffsberietschaft" for offense motivation in other animals to acknowledge possible differences. Temporal variation in angriffsberietschaft partitions fights into bouts; engendering reduced anti-predator vigilance, redirected aggression and motivational over-ride. Increased aggressive arousal drives threat-to-attack transitions, as in verbal-to-physical escalation and beyond that, into hyper-aggression. Proactive aggression and offense involve related neural activity states. Cingulate, insular and prefrontal cortices energize/modulate aggression through a subcortical core containing subnuclei for each aggression type. These proposals will deepen understanding of aggression across taxa, guiding prevention/intervention for human violence.

The effects of temperature on prosocial and antisocial behaviour: A review and meta-analysis

Research from the social sciences suggests an association between higher temperatures and increases in antisocial behaviours, including aggressive, violent, or sabotaging behaviours, and represents a heat-facilitates-aggression perspective. More recently, studies have shown that higher temperature experiences may also be linked to increases in prosocial behaviours, such as altruistic, sharing, or cooperative behaviours, representing a warmth-primes-prosociality view. However, across both literatures, there have been inconsistent findings and failures to replicate key theoretical predictions, leaving the status of temperature-behaviour links unclear. Here we review the literature and conduct meta-analyses of available empirical studies that have either prosocial (e.g., monetary reward, gift giving, helping behaviour) or antisocial (self-rewarding, retaliation, sabotaging behaviour) behavioural outcome variables, with temperature as an independent variable. In an omnibus multivariate analysis (total N = 4577) with 80 effect sizes, we found that there was no reliable effect of temperature on the behavioural outcome measured. Further, we find little support for either the warmth-primes-prosociality view or the heat-facilitates-aggression view. There were no reliable effects if we consider separately the type of behavioural outcome (prosocial or antisocial), different types of temperature experience (haptic or ambient), or potential interactions with the experimental social context (positive, neutral, or negative). We discuss how these findings affect the status of existing theoretical perspectives and provide specific suggestions advancing research in this area.

Women's mental health and climate change Part II: Socioeconomic stresses of climate change and eco-anxiety for women and their children

Climate change is a significant public health crisis that is both rooted in pre-existing inequitable socioeconomic and racial systems and will further worsen these social injustices. In the face of acute and slow-moving natural disasters, women, and particularly women of color, will be more susceptible to gender-based violence, displacement, and other socioeconomic stressors, all of which have adverse mental health outcomes. Among the social consequences of climate change, eco-anxiety resulting from these negative impacts is also increasingly a significant factor in family planning and reproductive justice, as well as disruptions of the feminine connection to nature that numerous cultures historically and currently honor. This narrative review will discuss these sociologic factors and also touch on ways that practitioners can become involved in climate-related advocacy for the physical and mental well-being of their patients.

Intraday adaptation to extreme temperatures in outdoor activity

Linkages between climate and human activity are often calibrated at daily or monthly resolutions, which lacks the granularity to observe intraday adaptation behaviors. Ignoring this adaptation margin could mischaracterize the health consequences of future climate change. Here, we construct an hourly outdoor leisure activity database using billions of cell phone location requests in 10,499 parks in 2017 all over China to investigate the within-day outdoor activity rhythm. We find that hourly temperatures above 30 °C and 35 °C depress outdoor leisure activities by 5% (95% confidence interval, CI 3-7%) and by 13% (95% CI 10-16%) respectively. This activity-depressing effect is larger than previous daily or monthly studies due to intraday activity substitution from noon and afternoon to morning and evening. Intraday adaptation is larger for locations and dates with time flexibility, for individuals more frequently exposed to heat, and for parks situated in urban areas. Such within-day adaptation substantially reduces heat exposure, yet it also delays the active time at night by about half an hour, with potential side effect on sleep quality. Combining empirical estimates with outputs from downscaled climate models, we show that unmitigated climate change will generate sizable activity-depressing and activity-delaying effects in summer when projected on an hourly resolution. Our findings call for more attention in leveraging real-time activity data to understand intraday adaptation behaviors and their associated health consequences in climate change research.

Anthropogenic influence on extremes and risk hotspots

Study of the frequency and magnitude of climate extremes as the world warms is of utmost importance, especially separating the influence of natural and anthropogenic forcing factors. Record-breaking temperature and precipitation events have been studied using event-attribution techniques. Here, we provide spatial and temporal observation-based analyses of the role of natural and anthropogenic factors, using state-of-the-art time series methods. We show that the risk from extreme temperature and rainfall events has severely increased for most regions worldwide. In some areas the probabilities of occurrence of extreme temperatures and precipitation have increased at least fivefold and twofold, respectively. Anthropogenic forcing has been the main driver of such increases and its effects amplify those of natural forcing. We also identify risk hotspots defined as regions for which increased risk of extreme events and high exposure in terms of either high Gross Domestic Product (GDP) or large population are both present. For the year 2018, increased anthropogenic forcings are mostly responsible for increased risk to extreme temperature/precipitation affecting 94%/72% of global population and 97%/76% of global GDP relative to the baseline period 1961-1990.

The interrelationship between food security, climate change, and gender-based violence: A scoping review with system dynamics modeling

Gender-based violence (GBV) is a global public health and human rights problem that is exacerbated by social and environmental stressors for a multitude of interpersonal, cultural, and economic reasons. Through sudden disruptions in the microclimate of a region, climate shocks often have a negative impact on food security, which correlates with increases in GBV. Associations between the various combinations of GBV, climate change, and food insecurity have been documented in the growing international literature, but questions remain about these associations that require further clarification. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2 provides insight through a real time demonstration into these interactions. This review of the global literature examines the interplay between GBV, climate change, and food insecurity-including recent literature regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. This review covers original research studies employing both quantitative and qualitative methodology, those that conducted secondary analyses of existing data sources and perspective pieces derived from observed evidence. An additional analytic layer of system dynamics modeling allowed for the integration of findings from the scoping review and discovery of additional insights into the interplay between disasters, food insecurity, and GBV. Findings from this review suggest that the development and adaptation of evidence-based, focused interventions and policies to reduce the effects of climate shocks and bolster food security may ultimately decrease GBV prevalence and impact.

What is the current evidence for the relationship between the climate and environmental crises and child marriage? A scoping review

Environmental crises such as climate change threaten the realisation of sexual and reproductive health and rights. In this scoping review, we examine the evidence for the relationship between environmental crises and child marriage. We conducted a search of Google Scholar, Scopus and MedLine from their origin to 4th June 2021 for both peer-reviewed academic literature and 'grey' literature. A total of 24 relevant articles were identified, including both quantitative and qualitative work. while there are limitations of the current evidence base such as its narrow geographical scope, we find that environmental crises worsen known drivers of child marriage, pushing families to marry their daughters early through loss of assets and opportunities for income generation, displacement of people from their homes, educational disruption, and the creation of settings in which sexual violence and the fear of sexual violence increase. Local socio-cultural contexts such as bride price or dowry practices further shape how these factors affect child marriage. Given many of the areas with the highest current rates of child marriage face the gravest environmental threats, action to tackle child marriage must take account of the link identified in this review.

Global evidence of the exposure-lag-response associations between temperature anomalies and food markets

Recent years have witnessed a landmark shift in global food prices due to the frequency of extreme weather events caused by temperature anomalies as well as the overlapping risks of COVID-19. Notably, the threat posed by temperature anomalies has spread beyond agricultural production to all aspects across food supply and demand channels, further amplifying volatility in food markets. Exploring trends in global food prices will give nations early warning signs to ensure the stability of food market. Accordingly, we utilize the Distributed Lag Non-Linear Model (DLNM) to simultaneously establish the exposure-lag-response associations between global temperature anomalies and food price returns in two dimensions: "Anomaly Degree" and "Response Time". Meanwhile, we also examine the cumulative lagged effects of temperature anomalies in terms of different quantiles and lag times. Several conclusions have been drawn. First, global food price returns will continue to decrease when the average temperature drops or rises slightly. While it turns up once the average temperature rises more than 1.1 °C. Second, major food commodities are more sensitive to temperature changes, and their price returns may also trend in a directional shift at different lags, with the trend in meat price being more particular. Third, food markets are more strongly affected in the case of extreme temperature anomalies. Many uncertainties still exist regarding the impact of climate change on food markets, and our work serves as a valuable reference for international trade regulation as well as the creation of dynamic climate risk hedging strategies.

Analysis of Daily Ambient Temperature and Firearm Violence in 100 US Cities

IMPORTANCE

Firearm violence is a leading public health crisis in the US. Understanding whether and how ambient temperature is associated with firearm violence may identify new avenues for prevention and intervention.

OBJECTIVE

To estimate the overall and regional association between hotter temperatures and higher risk of firearm violence in the US.

DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS

This cross-sectional study used distributed lag nonlinear models, controlling for seasonality and long-term time trends by city and pooled results overall and by climate region. The most populous cities in the US with the highest number of assault-related firearm incidence (ie, shootings) from 2015 to 2020 were analyzed. Data analysis was performed from October 2021 to June 2022.

EXPOSURES

Maximum daily temperature by city.

MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES

The primary outcome was the number of assault-related firearm shootings by city.

RESULTS

A total of 116 511 shootings in 100 cities were included in this analysis. The pooled analysis estimated that 6.85% (95% CI, 6.09%-7.46%) of all shootings were attributable to days hotter than city-specific median temperatures. This equates to 7973 total shootings (95% CI, 7092-8688 total shootings) across the 100 cities over the 6-year study period, although the number of total persons injured or killed would be higher. Estimated risk of firearm incidents increased almost monotonically with higher temperatures, with a local peak at the 84th percentile of the temperature range corresponding to a relative risk of 1.17 (95% CI, 1.12-1.21) compared with the median temperature. However, even moderately hot temperatures were associated with higher risk of shootings. Although significant, there was low heterogeneity between cities (I2 = 11.7%; Cochran Q test, P = .02), indicating regional or climate-specific variation in the daily temperature and incident shootings relationship.

CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE

These findings underscore the importance of heat adaptation strategies broadly throughout the year to reduce shootings, rather than focusing on only the hottest days.

The role of parenthood in worry about overheating in homes in the UK and the US and implications for energy use: An online survey study

Climate change brings an increase in temperatures and a higher frequency of heatwaves. Both have been linked to a rise in suicide rates and violent crime on a population level. However, little is known about the link between mental health and ambient temperatures on an individual level and for particular subgroups. Overheating poses health risks to children and disturbs sleep; leading to the expectation that parents are more worried about their homes getting too hot than non-parents. Two online survey studies (N = 1000 each) were conducted in the UK and the US to understand to what extent parents and an age-matched comparison group without children are worried about overheating and how they differ in their mitigation actions. Findings did not support the main hypotheses around greater overheating worry amongst parents in general, mothers or those with very young children. However, parents indicated a greater likelihood to upgrade or install air-conditioning (US) and to get electric fans (UK). Parents in the UK indicated using more mitigation options to cope with overheating than non-parents. Parents in the US, whilst not reporting doing more actions, were more likely to use air-conditioning to deal with overheating than non-parents. Finally, those parents who mentioned health impacts on children as a reason for worry about overheating, were more concerned about overheating than parents who had other reasons than children's health as a reason for being concerned about overheating. In summary, parental status might have implications for cooling energy use and concern for children's health might increase overheating worry; however, many open questions remain.

Climate Change and Mental Health: A Review of Empirical Evidence, Mechanisms and Implications

Anthropogenic climate change is an existential threat whose influences continue to increase in severity. It is pivotal to understand the implications of climate change and their effects on mental health. This integrative review aims to summarize the relevant evidence examining the harm climate change may have on mental health, suggest potential mechanisms and discuss implications. Empirical evidence has begun to indicate that negative mental health outcomes are a relevant and notable consequence of climate change. Specifically, these negative outcomes range from increased rates of psychiatric diagnoses such as depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder to higher measures of suicide, aggression and crime. Potential mechanisms are thought to include neuroinflammatory responses to stress, maladaptive serotonergic receptors and detrimental effects on one's own physical health, as well as the community wellbeing. While climate change and mental health are salient areas of research, the evidence examining an association is limited. Therefore, further work should be conducted to delineate exact pathways of action to explain the mediators and mechanisms of the interaction between climate change and mental health.