Climate and Environmental Influences on Maternal, Newborn and Child Health in Africa: Physical and Social Pathways, knowledge translation and intervention

Environmental and climatic conditions induce risk across from the prenatal to early childhood periods. Increasingly frequent and intense heat waves, flooding, air pollution, wildfire smoke and other physical hazards interact with social environments in complex ways to elevate risk for adverse maternal and perinatal outcomes as well as child development. Evidence is growing, though still limited, that exposures during critical windows (preconception, pregnancy, early childhood) affect maternal and perinatal outcomes as well as longer-term child neurodevelopment. There is need for more research on these exposure effects and how they manifest differently in different regions of the African continent.This Research Topic welcomes interdisciplinary work, spanning environmental epidemiology, social and structural determinants and climate and exposure science to elucidate linkages with adverse pregnancy outcomes and child development and to translate findings to policy and health systems. The Research Topic encourages submissions that precisely report exposure timing and local and climatic contexts, apply stratified analyses by socio-economic and geographic factors, and translate findings to policy, clinical or health systems. We seek contributions that move beyond single-exposure snapshots to integrate complex, comprehensive multi-hazard, perspectives and using data science methods (e.g. AI and machine learning) to improve exposure assessment, moving towards causal inference, evaluating or proposing interventions, policies, and health system responses. We welcome submissions from these priority themes: Theme 1: Environmental Exposures and Maternal–Newborn Outcomes• Heat and air pollution exposure in pregnancy: maternal heat stress, preterm birth, stillbirth, and mechanisms• Air pollution (personal, ambient and household): impacts on fetal growth, preterm birth, neonatal respiratory morbidity, and early-childhood development• Flooding and increased precipitation: effects on access to pregnancy-related care and intervention design• Wildfire smoke and episodic extreme pollution events: acute and chronic expo-sure effects and health-system preparednessTheme 2: Exposure Measurement, Modelling, and Analytical Methods• Modelling complex interactions between multiple physical and socio-cultural characteristics and their combined effects on maternal and perinatal outcomes• Exposure mapping, modelling, and validation: use of remote sensing, monitoring networks, and integrated data streams for maternal newborn and child health re-search• Measurement and methods: novel exposure assessment approaches (satellite, wearables), causal inference, harmonised metrics, and precise exposure timing within local contextTheme 3: Knowledge Translation, Policy, and Health-System Adaptation• Knowledge translation, policy development, and decision-support tools• Climate resilience planning and health-system adaptation strategies Topic editors: Prestige Tatenda Makanga, Aduragbemi Banke-Thomas, Terence Mushore, Adelaide M Lusambili Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/76185/climate-and-environmental-influences-on-maternal-newborn-and-child-health-in-africa-physical-and-social-pathways-knowledge-translation-and-intervention