Impact of urban heat islands on morbidity and mortality in heat waves: Observational time series analysis of Spain's five cities.

Autor: Cuerdo-Vilches T; Eduardo Torroja Construction Sciences Institute (Instituto de Ciencias de la Construcción Eduardo Torroja/IETcc), CSIC, 28033, Madrid., Díaz J; Climate Change, Health and Urban Environment Reference Unit, Carlos III Institute of Health (Instituto de Salud Carlos III/ISCIII), Madrid, Spain. Electronic address: j.diaz@isciii.es., López-Bueno JA; Climate Change, Health and Urban Environment Reference Unit, Carlos III Institute of Health (Instituto de Salud Carlos III/ISCIII), Madrid, Spain., Luna MY; State Meteorological Agency (Agencia Estatal de Meteorología/AEMET), Madrid, Spain., Navas MA; Climate Change, Health and Urban Environment Reference Unit, Carlos III Institute of Health (Instituto de Salud Carlos III/ISCIII), Madrid, Spain., Mirón IJ; Department of Health, Castile-La Mancha Regional Authority, Toledo, Spain., Linares C; Climate Change, Health and Urban Environment Reference Unit, Carlos III Institute of Health (Instituto de Salud Carlos III/ISCIII), Madrid, Spain.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: The Science of the total environment [Sci Total Environ] 2023 Sep 10; Vol. 890, pp. 164412. Date of Electronic Publication: 2023 May 23.
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.164412
Abstrakt: Urban heat islands (UHIs) have become an especially relevant phenomenon as a consequence of global warming and the growing proportion of people living in cities. The health impacts that are sometimes attributed to the rise in temperature generated in an UHI are not always adequately justified. The objective is to analyse what effect UHIs have on maximum (Tmax) and minimum daily temperatures (Tmin) recorded in urban and non-urban observatories, and quantify the impact on morbidity and mortality during heat waves in Spain's five cities. Data were collected on natural-cause daily mortality and unscheduled emergency hospital admissions (ICD-10: A00-R99) registered in these 5 cities across the period 2014-2018. We analysed daily Tmax and Tmin values at urban and non-urban observatories in these cities, and quantified the impact of Tmax and Tmin values during heat waves in each of these cities, using GLM models that included Tmax only, Tmin only, and both. We controlled for air pollution and other meteorological variables, as well as for seasonalities, trend and the autoregressive nature of the series. The UHI effect was observed in Tmin but not in Tmax, and proved to be greater in coastal cities than in inland and more densely populated cities. The UHI value in relation to the mean Tmin in the summer months ranged from 1.2 °C in Murcia to 4.1 °C in Valencia (difference between urban/non-urban observatories). The modelling process showed that, while a statistically significant association (p < 0.05) was observed in inland cities with Tmax for mortality and hospital admissions in heat waves, in coastal cities the association was obtained with Tmin, and the only impact in this case was the UHI effect on morbidity and mortality. No generalisations can be made about the impact of UHI on morbidity and mortality among the exposed population in cities. Studies on a local scale are called for, since it is local factors that determine whether the UHI effect will have a greater or lesser impact on health during heat-wave events.
Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
(Copyright © 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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