Kuras Evan R, Richardson Molly B, Calkins Miriam M, Ebi Kristie L, Hess Jeremy J, Kintziger Kristina W, Jagger Meredith A, Middel Ariane, Scott Anna A, Spector June T, Uejio Christopher K, Vanos Jennifer K, Zaitchik Benjamin F, Gohlke Julia M, Hondula David M
Center for Policy Informatics, Arizona State University , Phoenix, Arizona, USA.
Department of Environmental Conservation, University of Massachusetts , Amherst, Massachusetts, USA.
Environ Health Perspect. 2017 Aug 1;125(8):085001. doi: 10.1289/EHP556.
Environmental heat exposure is a public health concern. The impacts of environmental heat on mortality and morbidity at the population scale are well documented, but little is known about specific exposures that individuals experience.
The first objective of this work was to catalyze discussion of the role of personal heat exposure information in research and risk assessment. The second objective was to provide guidance regarding the operationalization of personal heat exposure research methods.
We define personal heat exposure as realized contact between a person and an indoor or outdoor environment that poses a risk of increases in body core temperature and/or perceived discomfort. Personal heat exposure can be measured directly with wearable monitors or estimated indirectly through the combination of time-activity and meteorological data sets. Complementary information to understand individual-scale drivers of behavior, susceptibility, and health and comfort outcomes can be collected from additional monitors, surveys, interviews, ethnographic approaches, and additional social and health data sets. Personal exposure research can help reveal the extent of exposure misclassification that occurs when individual exposure to heat is estimated using ambient temperature measured at fixed sites and can provide insights for epidemiological risk assessment concerning extreme heat.
Personal heat exposure research provides more valid and precise insights into how often people encounter heat conditions and when, where, to whom, and why these encounters occur. Published literature on personal heat exposure is limited to date, but existing studies point to opportunities to inform public health practice regarding extreme heat, particularly where fine-scale precision is needed to reduce health consequences of heat exposure. https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP556.
环境热暴露是一个公共卫生问题。环境热对人群死亡率和发病率的影响已有充分记录，但对于个体所经历的具体暴露情况却知之甚少。
这项工作的首要目标是推动关于个人热暴露信息在研究和风险评估中作用的讨论。第二个目标是为个人热暴露研究方法的实施提供指导。
我们将个人热暴露定义为个体与室内或室外环境之间的实际接触，这种接触存在导致核心体温升高和/或感知不适的风险。个人热暴露可以通过可穿戴监测器直接测量，也可以通过时间活动和气象数据集的组合间接估算。可以从额外的监测器、调查、访谈、人种学方法以及其他社会和健康数据集中收集补充信息，以了解行为、易感性以及健康和舒适结果的个体层面驱动因素。个人暴露研究有助于揭示在使用固定地点测量的环境温度估算个体热暴露时发生的暴露错误分类程度，并可为极端高温的流行病学风险评估提供见解。
个人热暴露研究能更有效、精确地洞察人们遇到热状况的频率以及这些情况何时、何地、发生在何人身上以及为何发生。目前关于个人热暴露的已发表文献有限，但现有研究指出了为极端高温的公共卫生实践提供信息的机会，特别是在需要精细尺度精度以减少热暴露对健康影响的情况下。https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP556
