Abstract
Extreme temperatures and mortality in 326 Latin American cities
Environmental health perspectives. Supplements, v 2021(1)
23 Aug 2021
Abstract
BACKGROUND AND AIM: Despite well-documented temperature-mortality impacts in North America, Europe, and China, few studies have examined the impact of extreme temperatures on health on a multinational level in Latin America. This study aims to characterize the impacts of ambient heat and cold on all-cause mortality in a large sample of cities across Latin America.
METHODS: We estimated population-weighted daily mean ambient temperature for each city using the ERA5-Land climate reanalysis with ~9 km horizontal grid resolution. For each city, we constructed a time series of daily all-cause mortality counts using individual-level mortality records. We used distributed lag (0-21 days) nonlinear conditional Poisson models to estimate city-specific associations between daily temperatures above (“heat”) and below (“cold”) the city-specific minimum mortality temperature and all-cause mortality, overall and stratified by age (0-49, 50-64, and 65+ years). We combined city-specific estimates using a random effects meta-analysis to estimate the attributable fraction (AF) of total deaths from heat or cold.
RESULTS: We analyzed 326 cities with ≥100,000 residents from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama, and Peru over 4-14 years between 2002-2015. The AF of total deaths from heat was 0.67% (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.58% to 0.74%). The AF of total deaths from cold was 5.09% (95% CI 4.64% to 5.47%). AFs from heat and cold were particularly high among individuals aged 65+ years: 0.81% (95% CI 0.75% to 0.86%) and 6.82% (95% CI 6.41% to 7.18%), respectively.
CONCLUSIONS: In Latin American cities, a substantial proportion of deaths are attributable to extreme temperatures. Older populations are particularly vulnerable. Within Latin America’s intertwined 21st century challenges of climate change, high urbanization, and a rapidly increasing number of individuals aged 65 years or older, policy makers in these settings must prioritize actions to prevent present and future health risks of extreme temperatures.
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Details
- Title
- Extreme temperatures and mortality in 326 Latin American cities
- Creators
- Josiah L. Kephart - Drexel UniversityBrisa Sánchez - Drexel UniversityJeff Moore - Drexel UniversityLeah H. Schinasi - Drexel UniversityXavier Delclòs Alió - University of California, BerkeleyMaryia Bakhtsiyarava - University of California, BerkeleyNelson Gouveia - Universidade de São PauloWaleska T. Caiaffa - Universidade Federal de Minas GeraisIryna Dronova - University of California, BerkeleySaravanan Arunachalam - University of North Carolina at Chapel HillAna V. Diez Roux - Drexel UniversityDaniel A. Rodríguez - University of California, Berkeley
- Publication Details
- Environmental health perspectives. Supplements, v 2021(1)
- Conference
- 33rd Annual Conference of the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology (ISEE 2021) (Virtual, 23 Aug 2021–26 Aug 2021)
- Resource Type
- Abstract
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Urban Health Collaborative; Epidemiology and Biostatistics; Environmental and Occupational Health
- Other Identifier
- 991020112048804721