Image

About

Climate change and population growth have driven an increase in the intensity, frequency, and impact of severe weather events. Over evolutionary time humans have adapted to changing environments but this has come at a biological cost. Maternal exposure to environmental stressors during pregnancy can result in reproductive trade-offs as maternal survival is prioritised over offspring quality. The Developmental Origins of Health & Disease hypothesis explores how early life stressors can disrupt foetal development and increase the risk of later life disease. There is a growing body of research exploring an association between maternal exposure to disaster stressors and perinatal outcomes, however this research remains limited in Australia.

The context in which a disaster is experienced can greatly affect its level of impact based on a country’s disaster response procedures, community preparedness, and an individual’s access to resources, risk perceptions, and past experiences. As such, my PhD research aimed to conduct a mixed-method investigation into an association between cyclone events and perinatal health, in an Australian context, at both the population and individual level. Focusing on cyclone events that have historically affected the state of Queensland, this research looked at i) spatial trends in perinatal health outcomes across the state using space time analysis, ii) population changes in birth outcomes across regions affected by severe (category five) cyclone events using administrative perinatal health records, and iii) individual predictors of maternal stress using an online survey and semi-structured interviews. In this seminar, I will present findings from my PhD research and discuss their implications for current and future research and practice.

Bio

Cynthia Parayiwa is a PhD candidate at the School of Archaeology and Anthropology supervised by Associate Professors Alison Behie, Aparna Lal, Robert Clark, and David Harley. Her research interests include survey development, GIS, and perinatal data analysis. She has been a research officer at the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare for six years and currently works in the Maternal and Perinatal Health Unit looking at maternal and perinatal mortality data. She also volunteers some time supporting the Journal of Developmental Origins of Health and Disease as their Social Media Editor.