The Challenge
We are experiencing more frequent and intense heatwaves as a result of climate change, which are negatively impacting millions of people’s health around the world - including here in the UK.
Pregnant women and their newborn babies are particularly vulnerable to extreme heat, with emerging evidence indicating an increased risk of preterm births, low birth weight and severe maternal illness. Despite the growing evidence, there is still much we don't understand about how heat affects pregnant women and their babies.
A key challenge in furthering intelligence and action in this area of research is the complexity of merging climate, environmental and health data, and subject-expertise to fully quantify the impact on mothers’ and babies’ health and modelling the longer-term effects in an increasingly warming world.
The Method
The MAGENTA study is led by a multidisciplinary team of geographers, epidemiologists, mathematical modellers, clinicians and immunologists, researching how the exposure to elevated or prolonged heat during pregnancy impacts pregnancy outcomes for people living in selected areas in Wales and London.
The Wellcome Trust has invested £2.2million in MAGENTA, to address multiple gaps in knowledge around the impact, modifying factors and biological mechanisms of exposure to elevated or prolonged heat during pregnancy in the UK. Large-scale analysis of linked temperature, environment and health data within the Secure Anonymised Information Linkage Databank (SAIL), a Trusted Research Environment at Swansea University, will be combined with biological samples from a consenting cohort of pregnant women in Wales, as part of a novel approach to improve understanding around the impacts of heat.
Six out of seven of the MAGENTA Project’s senior leadership team are women, leading in their areas of expertise that remain male-dominated. The voices of doctors, midwives, community leads and pregnant women from across local communities will be included in all aspects of the research. MAGENTA is prioritising the voice of women in the research, both for themselves and for our communities.
MAGENTA is partnered with the Kids’ Environment & Health Cohort at University College London and is collaborating with the Office of National Statistics and Administrative Data Research Wales.
Impact
MAGENTA is working to address the following research questions:
- What are the impacts of exposure to elevated heat during pregnancy in deprived communities, on pregnancy and neonatal outcomes in Wales and London?
- To what extent are associations observed modified by socio-demographic, housing qualities, and other environmental factors?
- What are the impacts of heat stress on biological stress and inflammation measures especially of the placenta for pregnant women in Wales?
- How do laboratory-derived biomarkers inform the observations in routinely collected data and can they be used to drive a population level understanding of the impacts of current and future climate change on pregnancy and neonatal outcomes?
The MAGENTA Project is driving research on the impacts of heat stress on women and babies - in doing so MAGENTA also aims to identify vulnerable groups who may be less resilient to climate change. With this evidence and meaningful public and stakeholder engagement, MAGENTA will produce actionable recommendations, maximising the impact of the research outputs on the public, policy makers and practice – and as a result improving health outcomes.
