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New approach to identifying proper thresholds for a heat warning system using health risk increments.

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND:A critical adaptation strategy for reducing heat-related health risk under climate change is to establish a heat warning system with a proper threshold that requires evaluation of heat-health relationships using empirical data. OBJECTIVES:This work presents a new approach to selecting proper health-based thresholds for a heat warning system which are different from thresholds of heat-health relationship. METHODS:The proposed approach examined heat-health relationships through analyzing 15 years of health records with a modified generalized additive model (GAM), compared risk ratio increments (RRIs) of threshold candidates against a reference, assessed frequency of days above these candidates, and presented results graphically for easy communication. The candidate with the maximum RRI and proper occurring frequency is potentially the best threshold. Three heat indicators, including wet-bulb globe temperature (WBGT), temperature (T), and apparent temperature (AT), as well as three health outcomes, including all-cause mortality, heat-related hospital admissions, and heat-related emergency visits were evaluated. RESULTS:Risk ratios for all three health outcomes showed a consistent rising trend with increasing threshold candidates for all three heat indicators among different age and gender groups. WBGT had the most obvious increasing trend of RRIs with the three health outcomes. The maximum RRI was observed in heat-related emergency visits (242%), followed by heat-related hospital admissions (73%), and all-cause mortality (9%). The RRIs assessed for the three health outcomes pointed to the same thresholds, 33.0?°C, 34.0?°C, and 37.5?°C for WBGT, T, and AT, respectively. The number of days above these thresholds and for warning to be issued ranged between 0 and 7 days during 2000-2014. DISCUSSION:This study demonstrated a new approach to determining heat-warning thresholds with different heat indicators and health outcomes. The proposed approach provides a straightforward, feasible, and flexible scientific tool that assists the authorities around the world in selecting a proper threshold for a heat warning system.

SUBMITTER: Cheng YT

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7126132 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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New approach to identifying proper thresholds for a heat warning system using health risk increments.

Cheng Yu-Ting YT Lung Shih-Chun Candice SC Hwang Jing-Shiang JS

Environmental research 20181226

<h4>Background</h4>A critical adaptation strategy for reducing heat-related health risk under climate change is to establish a heat warning system with a proper threshold that requires evaluation of heat-health relationships using empirical data.<h4>Objectives</h4>This work presents a new approach to selecting proper health-based thresholds for a heat warning system which are different from thresholds of heat-health relationship.<h4>Methods</h4>The proposed approach examined heat-health relation ...[more]

PMID: 30599292

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Project description:Fuel moisture content (FMC) is an important fuel property for assessing wildfire hazard, since it influences fuel flammability and fire behavior. The relationship between FMC and fire activity differs among land covers and seems to be a property of each ecosystem. Our objectives were to analyze pre-fire FMC among different land covers and to propose a wildfire hazard classification for the Sierras Chicas in the Chaco Serrano subregion (Argentina), by analyzing pre-fire FMC distributions observed for grasslands, shrublands and forests and using percentiles to establish thresholds. For this purpose, we used a fire database derived from Landsat imagery (30 m) and derived FMC maps every 8 days from 2002 to 2016 using MODIS reflectance products and empirical equations of FMC. Our results indicated that higher FMC constrains the extent of wildfires, whereas at lower FMC there are other factors affecting their size. Extreme and high fire hazard thresholds for grasslands were established at FMC of 55% and 67% respectively, at 72% and 105% for forests and at 106% and 121% for shrublands. Our FMC thresholds were sensitive to detect extreme fire hazard conditions during years with high fire activity in comparison to average conditions. The differences in the distributions of pre-fire FMC among land covers and between ecosystems highlighted the need to locally determine land cover-specific FMC thresholds to assess wildfire hazard. Our wildfire hazard classification applied to FMC maps in an operational framework will contribute to improving early warning systems in the Sierras Chicas. However, moisture alone is not sufficient to represent true fire hazard in Chaco forests and the combination with other variables would provide better hazard assessments. These operational wildfire hazard maps will help to better allocation of fire protective resources to minimize negative impact on people, property and ecosystems. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study analyzing pre-fire FMC over several fire seasons in a non-Mediterranean ecosystem, aiming at assessing wildfire hazard.

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New approach to identifying proper thresholds for a heat warning system using health risk increments.

Publications

New approach to identifying proper thresholds for a heat warning system using health risk increments.

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