How to write about China and India

The first BJHS Themes, a new, fully open access, peer-reviewed journal from the British Society for the History of Science, was published this month. The issue is entitled Science of Giants: China and India in the twentieth century. In this article, one of the volume’s editors, Jahnavi Phalkey, gives her observations on the opportunities and challenges on writing about China and India

The Aakash tablet and technological imaginaries of mass education in contemporary India

In a new paper published this month Jahnavi Phalkey and Sumandro Chattapadhyay explore public initiatives in technological solutions for educating the poor and the disadvantaged in independent India. Here, the authors offer an edited excerpt, tracing the recent history of technological solutions for mass education and unpacking the narrative of ‘failure’ that is associated with the Aakash experiment

The winter urban heat island: Impacts on cold-related mortality in a highly urbanized European region for present and future climate.

Exposure to heat has a range of potential negative impacts on human health; hot weather may exacerbate cardiovascular and respiratory illness or lead to heat stroke and death. Urban populations are at increased risk due to the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect (higher urban temperatures compared with rural ones). This has led to extensive investigation of the summertime UHI and its effects, whereas far less research focuses on the wintertime UHI. Exposure to low temperature also leads to a range of illnesses, and in fact, in the UK, annual cold-related mortality outweighs heat-related mortality. It is not clearly understood to what extent the wintertime UHI may protect against cold related mortality. In this study we quantify the UHI intensity in wintertime for a heavily urbanized UK region (West Midlands, including Birmingham) using a regional weather model, and for the first time, use a health impact assessment (HIA) to estimate the associated impact on cold-related mortality. We show that the population-weighted mean winter UHI intensity was +2.3 °C in Birmingham city center, and comparable with that of summer. Our results suggest a potential protective effect of the wintertime UHI, equivalent to 266 cold-related deaths avoided (~15% of total cold-related mortality over ~11 weeks). When including the impacts of climate change, our results suggest that the number of heat-related deaths associated with the summer UHI will increase from 96 (in 2006) to 221 in the 2080s, based on the RCP8.5 emissions pathway. The protective effect of the wintertime UHI is projected to increase only slightly from 266 cold-related deaths avoided in 2009 to 280 avoided in the 2080s. The different effects of the UHI in winter and summer should be considered when assessing interventions in the built environment for reducing summer urban heat, and our results suggest that the future burden of temperature-related mortality associated with the UHI is likely to increase in summer relative to winter

Comparing temperature-related mortality impacts of cool roofs in winter and summer in a highly urbanized European region for present and future climate

Human health can be negatively impacted by hot or cold weather, which often exacerbates respiratory or cardiovascular conditions and increases the risk of mortality. Urban populations are at particular increased risk of effects from heat due to the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect (higher urban temperatures compared with rural ones). This has led to extensive investigation of the summertime UHI, its impacts on health, and also the consideration of interventions such as reflective 'cool' roofs to help reduce summertime overheating effects. However, interventions aimed at limiting summer heat are rarely evaluated for their effects in wintertime, and thus their overall annual net impact on temperature-related health effects are poorly understood. In this study we use a regional weather model to simulate the winter 2009/10 period for an urbanized region of the UK (Birmingham and the West Midlands), and use a health impact assessment to estimate the impact of reflective 'cool' roofs (an intervention usually aimed at reducing the UHI in summer) on cold-related mortality in winter. Cool roofs have been shown to be effective at reducing maximum temperatures during summertime. In contrast to the summer, we find that cool roofs have a minimal effect on ambient air temperatures in winter. Although the UHI in summertime can increase heat-related mortality, the wintertime UHI can have benefits to health, through avoided cold-related mortality. Our results highlight the potential annual net health benefits of implementing cool roofs to reduce temperature-related mortality in summer, without reducing the protective UHI effect in winter. Further, we suggest that benefits of cool roofs may increase in future, with a doubling of the number of heat-related deaths avoided by the 2080s (RCP8.5) compared to summer 2006, and with insignificant changes in the impact of cool-roofs on cold-related mortality. These results further support reflective 'cool' roof implementation strategies as effective interventions to protect health, both today and in future

NUTRItion and CLIMate (NUTRICLIM): investigating the relationship between climate variables and childhood malnutrition through agriculture, an exploratory study in Burkina Faso

Malnutrition remains a leading cause of death in children in low- and middle-income countries; this will be aggravated by climate change. Annually, 6.9 million deaths of children under 5 were attributable directly or indirectly to malnutrition. Although these figures have recently decreased, evidence shows that a world with a medium climate (local warming up to 3–4 °C) will create an additional 25.2 million malnourished children. This proof of concept study explores the relationships between childhood malnutrition (more specifically stunting), regional agricultural yields, and climate variable through the use of remote sensing (RS) satellite imaging along with algorithms to predict the effect of climate variability on agricultural yields and on malnutrition of children under 5. The success of this proof of purpose study, NUTRItion and CLIMate (NUTRICLIM), should encourage researchers to apply both concept and tools to study of the link between weather variability, crop yield, and malnutrition on a larger scale. It would also allow for linking such micro-level data to climate models and address the challenge of projecting the additional impact of childhood malnutrition from climate change to various policy relevant time horizons

Linking weather data, satellite imagery and field observations to household food production and child undernutrition: an exploratory study in Burkina Faso

Worldwide, 50 million children under five are acutely malnourished, while 16 million amongst them suffer from severe wasting. Chronic malnutrition is more common and accounts for an estimated 159 million children, meaning that approximately 23.8% of all children under five worldwide are stunted. The proportion of stunted children has decreased worldwide between 1990 (39.6%) and 2014 (23.8%), but the progress has been unequal. While Asia as a whole reduced stunting by half (-47.0%) between 1990 and 2014, there are still 78 million stunted children in South Asia alone. Unlike Asia, the African continent has reduced stunting by just one quarter (24.0%). In contrast, the absolute number of stunted children in Africa has still increased, from 47 million in 1990, to 58 million in 2014. Under-nutrition is caused by a complex web of interdependent environmental/climatic, agricultural and socio-economic factors. Climate change has recently been identified as a major risk factor for childhood undernutrition. However, the scientific evidence base for this is weak. No study has so far simultaneously combined of the well-known drivers of undernutrition with climate change while being grounded in one population in one-time and in one location. Such studies are prerequisite for the relative attribution of the various risk factors, including climate chance, as causes of childhood undernutrition. In this exploratory study, methods from multiple sectors were applied to 20 randomly selected households in Bourasso in rural Burkina Faso, where more than 80% of the population are subsistence farmers, i.e. live off their fields. Well tested methods, such as household-level agricultural and nutritional surveys, anthropometric measurement of undernutrition with innovative methods, measuring household level-crop yields, were combined. This was done by participatory mapping of each household’s plots. Remote sensing algorithms were applied to RapidEye satellite scenes covering the study area in order to map the actual cultivated area and to derive qualitative harvest estimates for the surveyed micro-fields. Weather data were obtained from a research meteorological field station, about 20 km away from Bourasso. In addition to bringing field methods from different sectors together through the lens of a household, one further advanced method was integrated: The linkage between each household plot limits and their integration into the satellite scene making it possible to estimate crop yields at the plot level for each household and linking this to the nutritional status of that specific household. Thus the exploratory study produced the following results: High-resolution remote sensing data can assist studies on malnutrition in Burkina Faso; RapidEye is a promising data source in regard to the spatial resolution for micro-field assessments; The strong inter-annual variation of malnutrition is suggestive that climate is a casual factor in the absence of other explanatory factors (political unrest, price shocks of inputs, epidemics). Population-based studies replicating the described multi-sectoral toolbox should be upscaled to larger sample sizes and longer observational time series. This could contribute to generating crucial climate health impact functions, in this case for malnutrition

Systematic review of current efforts to quantify the impacts of climate change on undernutrition

The World Health Organization and the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change propose undernutrition as the most significant impact of climate change on child health. The question then arises: Where does the empirical evidence to back this claim come from? Current evidence for the impacts of climate on childhood undernutrition draws on a limited number of heterogeneous studies with methodological limitations and is based predominantly on secondary data. Establishing and validating causal pathways among complex confounding factors remain the main challenge in quantifying the climate-attributable fraction of undernutrition. Systematically generating evidence from long-term, high-quality primary data on a range of factors (agricultural, environmental, socioeconomic, and health) at the household level is critical for designing adaptation strategies, particularly for subsistence farmers

Injury, disability and quality of life after the 2009 earthquake in Padang, Indonesia: a prospective cohort study of adult survivors

Background: On 30 September 2009, a 7.6 magnitude earthquake severely hit the coast of Padang city in West Sumatra, Indonesia leaving about 1,117 people dead and injuring another 3,515. Health consequences such as physical injury, co-morbidity, disability and quality of life over time are seldom reported among survivors after earthquakes. Objectives: To investigate the associations between injury, disability and quality of life amongst adult survivors in Padang city after the 2009 earthquake.Design/Methods: A prospective cohort study was conducted to compare adult injured (184) and adult non-injured (93) subjects over a 6-month period. Data on physical injury, co-morbidities, disability and quality of life were collected through interviews and measured quantitatively in three phases, i.e. at baseline, end of 3 and 6 months. Results: Disability scores were consistently and significantly higher among injured subjects compared to non-injured, even when adjusted for co-morbidities (i.e. acute symptoms and chronic diseases). The highest disability score amongst injured subjects was attributed to ‘feeling discomfort/pain’. Quality of life attribute (QLA) scores, were significantly lower amongst injured people as compared to those non-injured even when adjusted for co-morbidities. The lowest QLA item score amongst the injured was ‘pain, depression and anxiety’. Significant and consistent negative correlations were found between disability and QLA scores in both the injured and non-injured groups. Conclusion: Physical injury is significantly correlated with both higher disability and lower quality of life, while disability has significant negative correlation with quality of life. The findings suggest that, through disability, injury may contribute to decreased quality of life. It is therefore recommended to promptly and adequately treat injuries after disasters to prevent any potential for disability and hence restore quality of life

Intervention of an Upgraded Ventilation System and Effects of the COVID-19 Lockdown on Air Quality at Birmingham New Street Railway Station

High NO2 concentrations (long term average of 383 µg/m3 in 2016/2017) recorded at Birmingham New Street railway station have resulted in the upgrade of the bi-directional fan system to aid wind dispersion within the enclosed platform environment. This paper attempts to examine how successful this intervention has been in improving air quality for both passengers and workers within the station. New air pollution data in 2020 has enabled comparisons to the 2016/2017 monitoring campaign revealing a 23–42% decrease in measured NO2 concentrations. The new levels of NO2 are below the Occupational Health standards but still well above the EU Public Health Standards. This reduction, together with a substantial decrease (up to 81%) in measured Particulate Matter (PM) concentrations, can most likely be attributed to the new fan system effectiveness. Carbon Monoxide levels were well below Occupational and Public Health Standards at all times. The COVID19 pandemic “initial lockdown” period has also allowed an insight into the resultant air quality at lower rail-traffic intensities, which produced a further reduction in air pollutants, to roughly half the pre-lockdown concentrations. This study shows the scope of improvement that can be achieved through an engineering solution implemented to improve the ventilation system of an enclosed railway station. Further reduction in air pollution would require additional approaches, such as the removal of diesel engine exhaust emissions via the adoption of electric or diesel-electric hybrid powered services