UC Santa Barbara

This dissertation explores the responses of different dimensions of health to temperature changes in tropical developing countries in three separate essays. The first studies the relationship between temperature and mortality in Colombia. I show that even at narrow temperature ranges, which are characteristic of the tropics, anomalously hot or cold days increase mortality. Unlike temperate locations, I find that deaths attributed to infectious diseases and respiratory illnesses drive this relationship in the hot part of the distribution, affecting children aged 0-5 primarily. These findings uncover new factors and populations at risk after the occurrence of hot temperature shocks. I calculate that the average person who dies after a hot temperature shock loses approximately 30 years of life. The second essay focuses on the relationship between temperature and health services usage in Colombia. I find that hospitalization rates monotonically increase with temperature. Infectious diseases and maternal-related care mainly explain these results, suggesting that children, fetus in-utero, and women could be significantly affected by changes in temperature. Assuming temperatures will continue to rise as they did in sample and no further adaptation measures are undertaken, my estimates imply 1,161.3 additional hospitalizations per 100,000 inhabitants per year (33.6\% of the average annual rate of 3458.87). These findings suggest that changes in temperature could impose a burden on the health system, but alternatively it could be an important mediating factor between climate change and mortality. In the last essay, my collaborators and I ask if temperature shocks differentially affect children's health by gender in sub-Saharan Africa. We find that hot temperature shocks decrease anthropometric measures for children under five, with girls seeming to bear much of the effect after exposure to extreme hot days.