Pan, Mingming, Nie, Xuen, Fan, Guangtao, Miao, Yufeng, Zhao, Zhuohui, Luo, Zhiwen  ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2082-3958, Lin, Shao and Deng, Qihong
2026.
Projections of heatwave-attributable preterm births in China (2025-2100): The effects of climate scenarios and adaptation measures.
Sustainable Cities and Society
149
, 107696.
10.1016/j.scs.2026.107696
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Abstract
Mounting evidence indicates that global warming leads to frequent, intense, and prolonged heatwaves, significantly increasing the risk of preterm birth (PTB). It is therefore necessary to work out the extent of the disease burden caused by heatwaves and the effects of the climate adaptation measures in the future. This study aims to evaluate the heatwave-attributable PTB across 367 Chinese cities from 2025 to 2100 under different climate scenarios based on shared socioeconomic pathways (SSP1-2.6, SSP2-4.5, and SSP5-8.5), and explore the potential effects of climate adaptation measures in terms of landscape interventions (cool roofs, green roofs, and urban trees). We found that high-emission climate scenarios will significantly increase the number of heatwave days, leading to a high incidence rate of PTB. The number of heatwave days will increase from 9.96 in 2025 to 127.70 in 2100 and the attributed PTB rate increases from 24.58 to 206.76 per million births under the highest emission scenario (SSP5-8.5), which is 2.6 times higher than that under the low-emission climate scenario SSP1-2.6. Landscape intervention strategies exhibit considerable effectiveness in mitigating heatwave-attributable PTB, but their effectiveness will be offset as the number of heatwave days increases, especially in high-emission climate scenarios. Our findings indicate that as global warming continues, future generations will face an increasing risk of PTB, and therefore mitigating global warming is imperative to ensure the birth outcomes and lifelong development of future generations.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Date Type: | Publication |
| Status: | Published |
| Schools: | Schools > Architecture |
| Additional Information: | RRS policy applied |
| Publisher: | Elsevier |
| ISSN: | 2210-6707 |
| Date of First Compliant Deposit: | 21 July 2026 |
| Date of Acceptance: | 10 July 2026 |
| Last Modified: | 21 Jul 2026 08:45 |
| URI: | https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/188313 |
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