Children and Climate Change Vulnerability Indices: a Scoping Review

Extreme climate is increasingly causing distress. A greater understanding of how these hazards affect children is critical for informing further research and improving climate change adaptation and resilience. Identifying climate change vulnerability indices that assess the impact of extreme climate events on human health present in the scientific literature, only examining those that include children, is the main scope of this research. Literature from Ovid Medline, Embase, Web of Science, Environment Complete, and Greenfile published between database inception and 2022 was used to complete a two-stage process, first focusing on index and climate change inclusion criteria, then based on criteria such as child population and health impacts. Data extraction utilized Covidence. We extracted general information, methodology, study characteristics, findings, and children-specific variables for each paper. Consequently, 14 eligible studies were identified from 2,262 papers: two reported child-focused results regarding an association between climate events and health complications using indices. Most studies focused on children under 5 years old. The most common child-specific variables included in these indices were age, health variables, and immunization status. Heterogeneity in the index methodology was found. Ultimately, gaps in the upper age range of childhood, the utilization of different child-relevant variables, and geographical information were identified. Additional studies are required to expand our knowledge of child vulnerability to allow for more in-depth systematic literature reviews or to create an independent, comprehensive index directly addressing the child population in the context of local impacts of climate change to promote children's health.