LRCCS Noon Lecture Series | Children's Ambient Heat Exposures, Family Adaptation, and Early Developmental Outcomes: New Evidence from the Survey of Early Education and Developmental Strengths (SEEDS)

Attend in person or via Zoom: https://myumi.ch/qZrN2.

The prenatal period and early childhood are critical periods of vulnerability to climatic and environmental hazards such as extreme heat. Many families can protect children from the negative impacts of heat exposure through adaptive strategies and technologies, but the most economically disadvantaged families may not be able to provide such buffers. This presentation will offer a national overview of children's changing ambient heat exposure in China. Additionally, it will present preliminary findings about adaptation and child development from a survey of early education in urban, suburban, and rural districts belonging to a city sometimes known as one of China's "furnace cities."

Emily Hannum is Stanley I. Sheerr Term Professor in the Social Sciences and Professor of Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania, where she is also associate dean for social sciences. She is affiliated with the Population Studies Center, the Center for the Study of Contemporary China, the Graduate School of Education, and the Penn Development Research Initiative. Her research interests are poverty and child welfare, gender and ethnic stratification, and sociology of education. Current projects focus on childhood poverty in China, the implications of demographic decline for educational systems and educational inequality, and climate risk, pollution, and children’s welfare in China and in comparative perspective.