Research Project 1

• Research Project 1 is an Individual Participant Data (IPD) meta-analysis to assess the size, shape, and nature of associations between exposure to high ambient temperatures and selected maternal and child conditions within the first two years of life. 
• Such techniques have not yet been employed in the fields of climate change and health and can overcome many of the limitations of traditional analyses of individual datasets and the biases inherent in classic systematic review methodology. 
• The project will find African cohort studies or trials that might be eligible by doing systematic mapping reviews. Data will be harmonized through re-coding raw individual participant data into a common set of variables, and subsequently, all the individual participant data from each eligible study will be pooled. 
• Analyses which will include a range of traditional statistical and novel machine-learning approaches will quantify associations between exposure to high temperatures and adverse maternal and neonatal outcomes. 
• The study may provide robust, definitive evidence on the impacts of heat on maternal and child health, and allow for estimation of the burden of rises in temperatures and other climate change manifestations on maternal and neonatal health.

This diagram illustrates the strengths of an individual participant data meta-analysis over the traditional research methodology approach