Climate Change and Health Group, Centre for Radiation Chemical and Environmental Hazards, Public Health England, Chilton, Oxon OX11 0RQ, UK; School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK.
Institute for Environmental Design and Engineering, University College London, Central House, 14 Woburn Place, London WC1H 0NN, UK.
Environ Int. 2021 Sep;154:106606. doi: 10.1016/j.envint.2021.106606. Epub 2021 May 7.
Human health can be negatively impacted by hot or cold weather, which often exacerbates respiratory or cardiovascular conditions and increases the risk of mortality. Urban populations are at particular increased risk of effects from heat due to the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect (higher urban temperatures compared with rural ones). This has led to extensive investigation of the summertime UHI, its impacts on health, and also the consideration of interventions such as reflective 'cool' roofs to help reduce summertime overheating effects. However, interventions aimed at limiting summer heat are rarely evaluated for their effects in wintertime, and thus their overall annual net impact on temperature-related health effects are poorly understood. In this study we use a regional weather model to simulate the winter 2009/10 period for an urbanized region of the UK (Birmingham and the West Midlands), and use a health impact assessment to estimate the impact of reflective 'cool' roofs (an intervention usually aimed at reducing the UHI in summer) on cold-related mortality in winter. Cool roofs have been shown to be effective at reducing maximum temperatures during summertime. In contrast to the summer, we find that cool roofs have a minimal effect on ambient air temperatures in winter. Although the UHI in summertime can increase heat-related mortality, the wintertime UHI can have benefits to health, through avoided cold-related mortality. Our results highlight the potential annual net health benefits of implementing cool roofs to reduce temperature-related mortality in summer, without reducing the protective UHI effect in winter. Further, we suggest that benefits of cool roofs may increase in future, with a doubling of the number of heat-related deaths avoided by the 2080s (RCP8.5) compared to summer 2006, and with insignificant changes in the impact of cool-roofs on cold-related mortality. These results further support reflective 'cool' roof implementation strategies as effective interventions to protect health, both today and in future.
人类健康会受到炎热或寒冷天气的负面影响，这些天气通常会使呼吸或心血管状况恶化，并增加死亡率。由于城市热岛（UHI）效应（城市温度比农村高），城市人口尤其容易受到热效应的影响。这导致了对夏季 UHI 的广泛研究，及其对健康的影响，以及考虑采取反射“凉爽”屋顶等干预措施，以帮助减少夏季过热的影响。然而，旨在限制夏季热量的干预措施很少针对其冬季效果进行评估，因此，人们对其对与温度相关的健康影响的总体年度净影响了解甚少。在这项研究中，我们使用区域气象模型模拟了英国城市化地区（伯明翰和西米德兰兹）的 2009/10 年冬季，并使用健康影响评估来估计反射“凉爽”屋顶（通常旨在减少夏季 UHI 的干预措施）对冬季寒冷相关死亡率的影响。凉爽的屋顶已被证明在夏季能有效降低最高温度。与夏季不同，我们发现凉爽的屋顶对冬季环境空气温度的影响极小。尽管夏季的 UHI 会增加与热相关的死亡率，但冬季的 UHI 对健康有益，可以避免与寒冷相关的死亡率。我们的研究结果强调了在夏季实施凉爽屋顶以减少与温度相关的死亡率的潜在年度净健康效益，而不会降低冬季的保护性 UHI 效应。此外，我们认为凉爽屋顶的好处可能会增加，到 21 世纪 80 年代（RCP8.5），与 2006 年夏季相比，避免的与热相关的死亡人数将增加一倍，而凉爽屋顶对与寒冷相关的死亡率的影响则没有明显变化。这些结果进一步支持反射“凉爽”屋顶实施策略作为保护健康的有效干预措施，无论是在今天还是在未来。
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