School of Public Health, Key Lab of Public Health Safety of the Ministry of Education and NHC Key Lab of Health Technology Assessment, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200032, China.
Guangzhou Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Guangzhou, 510440, China.
Int J Hyg Environ Health. 2023 May;250:114157. doi: 10.1016/j.ijheh.2023.114157. Epub 2023 Mar 28.
Heatwaves have significant adverse effects on human health. The frequency, duration, and intensity of heatwaves are projected to increase dramatically, in the context of global warming. However, there are few comprehensive assessments of the health impact of heatwaves considering different definitions, and their characteristics under climate change scenarios.
We aimed to compare future excess mortality related to heatwaves among different definitions under climate change, population, and adaptation scenarios in China and further explore the mortality burden associated with heatwave characteristics.
Daily data during 2010-2019 were collected in Guangzhou, China. We adopted nine common heatwave definitions and applied quasi-Poisson models to estimate the effects of heatwaves and their characteristics' impact on mortality. We then projected the excess mortality associated with heatwaves and their characteristics concerning climate change, population, and adaptation scenarios.
The relative risks of the nine common heatwave definitions ranged from 1.05 (95% CI: 1.01, 1.10) to 1.24 (95% CI: 1.13, 1.35). Heatwave-related excess mortality will consistently increase in the future decades considering multiple heatwave definitions, with more rapidly increasing rates under the Shared Socioeconomic Path5-8.5 and non-adaptability scenarios. Regarding heatwave characteristics, the intensity is the main factor involved in the threat of heatwaves. The increasing trend of characteristic-related mortality burden is similar to that of heatwaves, and the mortality burden caused by the duration of the heatwaves was the largest among all characteristics.
This study provides a comprehensive picture of the impact of heatwaves and their characteristics on public health under various climate change scenarios, population changes, and adaptive assumptions. The results may provide important public health implications for policymakers in planning climate change adaptation and mitigation policies, and implementing specific plans.
热浪对人类健康有重大的负面影响。在全球变暖的背景下，热浪的频率、持续时间和强度预计将大幅增加。然而，考虑到不同的定义以及它们在气候变化情景下的特征，很少有对热浪健康影响的综合评估。
我们旨在比较不同定义的热浪对中国气候变化、人口和适应情景下的超额死亡的影响，并进一步探讨与热浪特征相关的死亡负担。
我们收集了中国广州 2010-2019 年期间的日数据。采用了 9 种常见的热浪定义，并应用拟泊松模型来估计热浪及其特征对死亡率的影响。然后，我们预测了与热浪及其特征有关的超额死亡人数，考虑了气候变化、人口和适应情景。
9 种常见热浪定义的相对风险从 1.05（95%置信区间：1.01，1.10）到 1.24（95%置信区间：1.13，1.35）不等。考虑到多种热浪定义，未来几十年热浪相关的超额死亡人数将持续增加，在共享社会经济路径 5-8.5 和非适应情景下增加速度更快。关于热浪特征，强度是热浪威胁的主要因素。与热浪有关的死亡负担的增加趋势与热浪相似，而热浪持续时间引起的死亡负担在所有特征中最大。
本研究在各种气候变化情景、人口变化和适应假设下，全面描述了热浪及其特征对公共健康的影响。研究结果可能为决策者在规划气候变化适应和缓解政策以及实施具体计划方面提供重要的公共卫生启示。
