Climate change is the greatest threat to public health in this century. However, there is much we still do not know about how climate change affects maternal and child health, especially in a Nordic context.
The aim of CLIMATCH is to study the individual and societal consequences of climate change on maternal and child health – in the short and long term. The exposure window on interest is the prenatal and childhood periods, with a particular emphasis on observations in Norway.
The project uses data from Norwegian registries with many millions of pregnancies, with extra detailed information on the more than 100,000 pregnancies included in the Norwegian Mother, Father and Child Cohort Study (MoBa). Additionally, the project is collaborating closely with international research projects with similar aims. We work quantitatively with advanced epidemiological methods, including genetic and epigenetic epidemiology.
The project will provide pregnant women, families, clinicians and policy makers – nationally and internationally – crucial information about the potential causes of the studied diseases, and will be of help when meeting the challenges posed by climate change.