Temperature extremes and infant mortality in Bangladesh: Hotter months, lower mortality

BackgroundOur study aims to obtain estimates of the size effects of temperature extremes on infant mortality in Bangladesh using monthly time series data.MethodsData on temperature, child and infant mortality were obtained for Matlab district of rural Bangladesh for January 1982 to December 2008 encompassing 49,426 infant deaths. To investigate the relationship between mortality and temperature, we adopted a regression with Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) errors model of seasonally adjusted temperature and mortality data. The relationship between monthly mean and maximum temperature on infant mortality was tested at 0 and 1 month lags respectively. Furthermore, our analysis was stratified to determine if the results differed by gender (boys versus girls) and by age (neonates (≤ 30 days) versus post neonates (>30days and ResultsHotter months were associated with lower infant mortality in Bangladesh. Each degree Celsius increase in mean monthly temperature reduced monthly mortality by 3.672 (SE 1.544, pConclusionThere is no evidence that infant survival is adversely affected by monthly temperature extremes in Bangladesh. This may reflect a more heightened sensitivity of infants to hypothermia than hyperthermia in this environment.