Thermal variability and the geography of optimal temperature for child survival: childhood respiratory-infection mortality in 171 countries: a systematic analysis of the Global Burden of Disease Study 2023 and the C-LSAT high-resolution climate dataset

Childhood lower respiratory infection mortality has a minimum mortality temperature of 17.1°C (95% CI 14.7–19.8) across 171 countries, with zone-specific optima.

• Why it matters: Evidence for child respiratory-infection thermal optima and whether temperature variability relates to mortality is limited, and global, climate-zone-resolved estimates were missing.
• What they did: Using Global Burden of Disease 2023 (1990–2023) and 0.5° monthly C-LSAT temperature plus DTR, two-way fixed-effects models estimated a quadratic mean-temperature minimum and tested variability links.
• The result: Interannual variability is positively associated with LRI (+0.278 per 1°C; p=0.002) and asthma mortality (+0.836 per 1°C; p=2.6×10−5), but falsification and detrending indicate trend-level, not contemporaneous causal, signals.

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