Projected heat-related mortality in the U.S. urban northeast.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Petkova EP
PROVIDER: S-EPMC3881138 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Dec
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Publications
Projected heat-related mortality in the U.S. urban northeast.
Petkova Elisaveta P EP Horton Radley M RM Bader Daniel A DA Kinney Patrick L PL
International journal of environmental research and public health 20131203 12
Increased heat-related mortality is projected to be among the major impacts of climate change on human health, and the United States urban Northeast region is likely to be particularly vulnerable. In support of regional adaptation planning, quantitative information is needed on potential future health responses at the urban and regional scales. Here, we present future projections of heat-related mortality in Boston, New York and Philadelphia utilizing downscaled next-generation climate models an ...[more]
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Project description:OBJECTIVE:To understand the role of county characteristics in the growing divide between rural and urban mortality from 1980 to 2010. DATA SOURCE:Age-adjusted mortality rates for all U.S. counties from 1980 to 2010 were obtained from the CDC Compressed Mortality File and combined with county characteristics from the U.S. Census Bureau, the Area Health Resources File, and the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social research. STUDY DESIGN:We used Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition to assess the extent to which rural-urban mortality disparities are explained by observed county characteristics at each decade. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS:Decomposition shows that, at each decade, differences in rural/urban characteristics are sufficient to explain differences in mortality. Furthermore, starting in 1990, rural counties have significantly lower predicted mortality than urban counties when given identical county characteristics. We find changes in the effect of characteristics on mortality, not the characteristics themselves, drive the growing mortality divide. CONCLUSIONS:Differences in economic and demographic characteristics between rural and urban counties largely explain the differences in age-adjusted mortality in any given year. Over time, the role these characteristics play in improving mortality has increased differentially for urban counties. As characteristics continue changing in importance as determinants of health, this divide may continue to widen.
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Project description:Under future warming conditions, high ambient temperatures will have a significant impact on population health in Europe. The aim of this paper is to quantify the possible future impact of heat on population mortality in European countries, under different climate change scenarios. We combined the heat-mortality function estimated from historical data with meteorological projections for the future time laps 2035-2064 and 2071-2099, developed under the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) 4.5 and 8.5. We calculated attributable deaths (AD) at the country level. Overall, the expected impacts will be much larger than the impacts we would observe if apparent temperatures would remain in the future at the observed historical levels. During the period 2071-2099, an overall excess of 46,690 and 117,333 AD per year is expected under the RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5 scenarios respectively, in addition to the 16,303 AD estimated under the historical scenario. Mediterranean and Eastern European countries will be the most affected by heat, but a non-negligible impact will be still registered in North-continental countries. Policies and plans for heat mitigation and adaptation are needed and urgent in European countries in order to prevent the expected increase of heat-related deaths in the coming decades.
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Project description:Current greenhouse gas mitigation ambition is consistent with ~3°C global mean warming above preindustrial levels. There is a clear need to strengthen mitigation ambition to stabilize the climate at the Paris Agreement goal of warming of less than 2°C. We specify the differences in city-level heat-related mortality between the 3°C trajectory and warming of 2° and 1.5°C. Focusing on 15 U.S. cities where reliable climate and health data are available, we show that ratcheting up mitigation ambition to achieve the 2°C threshold could avoid between 70 and 1980 annual heat-related deaths per city during extreme events (30-year return period). Achieving the 1.5°C threshold could avoid between 110 and 2720 annual heat-related deaths. Population changes and adaptation investments would alter these numbers. Our results provide compelling evidence for the heat-related health benefits of limiting global warming to 1.5°C in the United States.
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Project description:BACKGROUND:There is an established U-shaped association between daily temperature and mortality. Temperature changes projected through the end of century are expected to lead to higher rates of heat-related mortality but also lower rates of cold-related mortality, such that the net change in temperature-related mortality will depend on location. OBJECTIVES:We quantified the change in heat-, cold-, and temperature-related mortality rates through the end of the century across 10 large US metropolitan areas. METHODS:We applied location-specific projections of future temperature from over 40 downscaled climate models to exposure-response functions relating daily temperature and mortality in 10 US metropolitan areas to estimate the change in temperature-related mortality rates in 2045-2055 and 2085-2095 compared to 1992-2002, under two greenhouse gas emissions scenarios (RCP 4.5 and 8.5). We further calculated the total number of deaths attributable to temperature in 1997, 2050, and 2090 in each metropolitan area, either assuming constant population or accounting for projected population growth. RESULTS:In each of the 10 metropolitan areas, projected future temperatures were associated with lower rates of cold-related deaths and higher rates of heat-related deaths. Under the higher-emission RCP 8.5 scenario, 8 of the 10 metropolitan areas are projected to experience a net increase in annual temperature-related deaths per million people by 2086-2095, ranging from a net increase of 627 (95% empirical confidence interval [eCI]: 239, 1018) deaths per million in Los Angeles to a net decrease of 59 (95% eCI: -485, 314) deaths per million in Boston. Applying these projected temperature-related mortality rates to projected population size underscores the large public health burden of temperature. CONCLUSIONS:Increases in the heat-related death rate are projected to outweigh decreases in the cold-related death rate in 8 out of 10 cities studied under a high emissions scenario. Adhering to a lower greenhouse gas emissions scenario has the potential to substantially reduce future temperature-related mortality.
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