Climate-Health Nexus

Climate-Health Nexus

Our research is dedicated to understanding the complex climate-health nexus, examining the intricate relationships among population dynamics, poverty, women’s autonomy, climate change, and health outcomes. We affirm that girls and women are central to planetary health; however, they often bear the disproportionate brunt of environmental shocks, particularly in refugee and humanitarian settings. In these contexts, compounded crises—where climate disasters, conflict, and displacement overlap—intensify vulnerabilities and erode the coping capacities of women and girls. As the global focus shifts toward a planetary health framework, investing in sexual and reproductive autonomy is a critical prerequisite for building resilience. By centering the lived realities of displaced populations, we aim to develop strategies that safeguard health and agency.

Current Projects & Research

Climate and Reproductive Health: Building Resilience for Mothers and Children

We have launched a new collaborative program with Dr. Laura H. Kwong’s Global Environmental Health Solutions Lab, focusing on the intersection of climate change and reproductive health. This interdisciplinary initiative will investigate how extreme heat and other climate hazards affect pregnant and postpartum people, their newborns, and children in low- and middle-income countries, with the goal of strengthening evidence, training, and policy.

The collaboration has achieved significant momentum over the past year, marked by the publication of several key manuscripts:

Building on this foundation, our current and future work is expanding the evidence base through several focused projects, including:

  • Systematic reviews and meta-analyses on the link between heat exposure and adverse birth outcomes.
  • Qualitative research with pregnant women and their communities in Bangladesh to understand localized extreme heat exposure.
  • Narrative reviews exploring the mechanistic pathways that link extreme heat to adverse maternal and fetal health.

Project leads: Ndola Prata; Laura H. Kwong

Research Team:  Cara Schulte; Blake Erhardt-Ohren; Sophie Cotton; Simone Gramling; Karen Weidert 

How Overlapping Crises Impact Women in Refugee Settings

The Bixby Center, in collaboration with Research Fellow Bhavya Joshi has released a first-of-its-kind study on "compounded crises" in Kenya’s Kakuma and Kalobeyei refugee camps.

For women and girls in humanitarian settings, a single crisis rarely happens in isolation. Our research introduces a novel framework to understand how multiple, interacting challenges—such as conflict, climate shocks, and economic instability—overlap to create recurring stress. By mapping these pathways, we can better see how these combined forces erode coping capacities and harm reproductive health.

This project was a true community effort, developed alongside refugee women, UN agencies, the Kenyan Ministry of Health, and local community-based organizations.

  • Research was featured by the Chancellor of UC Berkeley in his communication letter and a School of Public Health Spotlight. 
  • The research was presented at various conferences including UAPS Malawi 2024, IPC Brisbane 2025, International Migration Conference 2025, ICFP 2025 and at United Nations CSW Side Event 2026.

Building Youth Leadership Across Borders: A Global Workshop Series

Refugee youth are already leaders in their communities—often without the formal recognition or support they deserve. In partnership with Bhavya Joshi, Christopher LeBoa, Stanford Center for Innovation in Global Health and community partners in Kenya and Bangladesh, we are launching an 8-part skill-building series co-designed by the youth themselves.

The Project at a Glance:

  • Co-Design: Workshops are built around needs identified by youth in Kakuma (Kenya) and Cox’s Bazar (Bangladesh), including advocacy, digital literacy, and project design.
  • Cross-Camp Collaboration: We are creating a first-of-its-kind shared learning space where Rohingya and East African youth organizers can exchange best practices and build long-term relationships.
  • Our Goal: To amplify refugee voices and provide the specific tools these young leaders have identified as essential to their advocacy and community organizing.

Recent Publications

Climate–Poverty Connections: Opportunities for synergistic solutions at the intersection of planetary and human well-being

Yusuf Jameel; Carissa M. Patrone; Kristen P. Patterson; Paul C. West
Report, 2022

A Clinic-Based School Readiness Coaching Intervention for Low-Income Latino Children: An Intervention Study

Ndola Prata; Jaime W. Peterson; Jannine Bruce; Kim G. Harley; Lynne C. Huffman; Lisa J. Chamberlain
Journal Article, 2020

Women and Girls at the Center of Planetary Health Solutions

Ndola Prata
Video, 2019

Past Projects and Research

One Health Workforce-Next Generation

The One Health Workforce-Next Generation (2019-2025) was a USAID Funded project based at UC Davis. The One Health approach recognizes the growing connection between the health of animals, people, plants, and the environment. The One Health Workforce-Next Generation project supported the Africa One Health University Network (AFROHUN) and Southeast Asia One Health University Network (SEAOHUN) in building scalable and sustainable systems that trained and empowered human resources to combat complex and dynamic global health threats in the world’s most vulnerable areas for disease emergence. Dr. Prata served as the Gender Lead, driving the integration of gender equity and sensitivity across One Health education, research, and practice. Her focus was on addressing persistent gender disparities in human, animal, and environmental health. Key components of this work included promoting women's leadership, mandating the use of gender-disaggregated data, and implementing gender-responsive policies to ensure equitable participation and outcomes for all genders in global health challenges, such as zoonotic diseases.