Health SDGs are at risk from climate change: Evidence from India

PLOS One | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0335529 November 26, 2025 9 / 17 districts have 0.14 times higher log-odds of being stunted. Similarly, for wasting and being underweight, coefficients of 0.06 and 0.22 respectively, also indicate that there exists a positive association between higher climatic vulnerability and adverse outcomes on wasting and being underweight. The highest value for a positive coefficient is for non- institutional deliveries at 0.32, revealing a high likelihood of births occurring outside health-facilities in highly vulnerable districts as compared to other districts. Problems in accessing healthcare are also positively associated with climatic Fig 2. Prevalence of SDG health outcomes by climatic vulnerability. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0335529.g002 Table 3. Regression Results for – Stunting, Wasting, Underweight, and Non-institutional deliveries. SDG Health Outcomes (Dependent Variables) Stunting Wasting Underweight Non-institutional deliveries Explanatory Variables Climatic Vulnerability 0.14**(0.02) 0.06**(0.02) 0.22**(0.02) 0.32**(0.03) Age of child 0.09**(0.01) −0.14** (0.01) 0.07**(0.01) 0.06** (0.01) Mother’s Education −0.36** (0.01) −0.18** (0.01) −0.38** (0.01) −0.78** (0.02) Prenatal care: doctor −0.14** (0.01) −0.11** (0.01) −0.15** (0.01) −0.49** (0.02) Sex of the child 0.09** (0.01) 0.11** (0.01) 0.09** (0.01) 0.02 (0.02) Birth order number 0.06** (0.005) 0.01* (0.006) 0.04** (0.005) 0.22** (0.007)

Number of antenatal visits during pregnancy −0.05** (0.015) 0.01 (0.017) −0.05** (0.015) −0.47** (0.023) Constant −0.65** (0.09) −0.76** (0.10) −0.70** (0.09) −1.11** (0.14) LR chi2 2943.19** 1854.37** 3598.06** 12532.21** Observations 103787 101498 106313 110540 Notes: Standard errors are provided in parentheses. The significance levels are marked as follows: * denotes 5% and ** denotes 1% level of significance (* p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01) https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0335529.t003