Work

Observation and modeling of fertility loss attributable to natural disasters from 1990-2021

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: Natural disasters have increasingly threatened population health, but their global impacts on fertility remain uncertain. This study aims to quantify global fertility loss attributable to natural disasters and its socioeconomic disparities. We conducted a two-stage analysis using disaster records from the Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT) and total fertility rate (TFR) and net reproductive rate (NRR) data from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) 2021 database. First, we used country-year panel data to assess exposure-response functions. Second, we estimated spatiotemporal distributions and inequalities of global, regional, and national fertility losses attributable to natural disasters. Here we show that, globally, floods and storms contribute to annual TFR losses of 103.79 and 38.75 per 100,000 women of childbearing age. Flood-attributable TFR loss is most pronounced in South Asia, particularly in low-SDI and low-income countries, whereas storm-attributable TFR loss is greater in high-SDI and middle-income countries. For NRR, epidemics, storms, floods, and earthquakes contribute to losses of 35.26, 32.36, 31.96, and 24.53 per 100,000 women of childbearing age annually. South Asia shows the highest NRR losses attributable to floods, storms, and earthquakes, whereas Sub-Saharan Africa shows the highest epidemic-attributable NRR loss. Epidemic- and flood-attributable NRR losses are higher in low-SDI and low-income countries, whereas earthquake- and storm-attributable NRR losses are higher in middle- to high-SDI and income countries. Floods, storms, earthquakes, and epidemics contribute to significant fertility loss worldwide, with geographical and socioeconomic disparities. Regions prone to these disasters should implement local-specific reproductive health strategies to maintain sustainable demographic structures. Natural disasters increasingly threaten human health, but their impact on fertility remains unclear. We analyzed global data to see how events like floods, storms, and disease outbreaks affect these fertility patterns. Our study found that disasters significantly reduce the average number of children born to women worldwide. Floods and storms caused the largest fertility losses, especially in South Asia and lower-income regions. In Sub-Saharan Africa, disease outbreaks had the most significant impact on the number of children surviving to the next generation. These findings show that disasters create long-term population challenges that vary greatly depending on a region’s wealth. This research highlights the urgent need for governments to provide better reproductive healthcare in high-risk areas. Such support is vital to help communities remain stable and maintain healthy population structures after a disaster occurs. Chen, Wang, et al. investigate the global relationship between natural disasters and fertility metrics using a two-stage analysis. Their findings show that floods, storms, earthquakes, and epidemics significantly decrease fertility, with substantial disparities across geographical regions and socioeconomic levels.

Source: Communications Medicine

DOI: 10.1038/s43856-026-01743-y