Natural Disasters

• Department of Political and Social Sciences

PhD thesis defence by Hilde Orderud

Natural disasters have increased in frequency, intensity and magnitude in recent years, and with climate change more extreme weather events are expected in the future. The aim of this dissertation is to better understand how populations are affected by such disasters by analysing demographic and health outcomes for women and children in low- and lower-middle-income countries. In the first empirical chapter, I and a co-author investigate the impact of the 2010 Haiti earthquake on parity specific fertility by applying event history analysis in a difference-in-differences design. The results show no impact from the earthquake on first, second, or third births. In the second empirical chapter, set in the same context, I investigate child nutrition by applying linear regression in a cohort-based difference-in-differences design. The findings show a short-term improvement in child nutrition in less affected areas, and a long-term lack of improvement in child nutrition in the most affected area. In the third empirical chapter, I investigate storms and infant mortality in the Philippines. I apply linear probability models and mother fixed-effects to explore whether storm exposure two months after birth to five years prior to birth has an impact on infant mortality. Overall, the results indicate limited or no association between storms and infant mortality, in both the short- and the long-term. In the final empirical chapter, I and co-authors investigate the associations between floods and maternal healthcare utilisation in Bangladesh. Flood exposure from in utero to five years prior to birth is analysed with a multilevel design, and shows no impact of flood exposure on maternal healthcare utilisation. Findings from this dissertation contribute to a better understanding of the potential consequences of natural disasters for women and children in low- and lower-middle-income countries, which is needed to ensure better targeted measures to protect vulnerable population sub-groups in natural hazard related disasters.

Hilde Orderud is a senior researcher at INVEST Research Flagship Centre at University of Turku and an affiliated researcher at the Centre for Research on Pandemics & Society at Oslo Metropolitan University. Her research interests cover maternal and child health, health inequalities, social demography, and social inequalities, with a special focus on demographic and health outcomes in the context of natural disasters, climate change, epidemics or pandemics.