Universidad de Santiago de Chile, Av. Bernardo O'Higgins 3363, Santiago, Chile.
University of Groningen, Wirdumerdijk 34, 8911 CE, Leeuwarden, The Netherlands.
Sci Rep. 2023 Apr 25;13(1):6726. doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-33890-w.
Cities in the global south face dire climate impacts. It is in socioeconomically marginalized urban communities of the global south that the effects of climate change are felt most deeply. Santiago de Chile, a major mid-latitude Andean city of 7.7 million inhabitants, is already undergoing the so-called "climate penalty" as rising temperatures worsen the effects of endemic ground-level ozone pollution. As many cities in the global south, Santiago is highly segregated along socioeconomic lines, which offers an opportunity for studying the effects of concurrent heatwaves and ozone episodes on distinct zones of affluence and deprivation. Here, we combine existing datasets of social indicators and climate-sensitive health risks with weather and air quality observations to study the response to compound heat-ozone extremes of different socioeconomic strata. Attributable to spatial variations in the ground-level ozone burden (heavier for wealthy communities), we found that the mortality response to extreme heat (and the associated further ozone pollution) is stronger in affluent dwellers, regardless of comorbidities and lack of access to health care affecting disadvantaged population. These unexpected findings underline the need of a site-specific hazard assessment and a community-based risk management.
发展中国家的城市面临严峻的气候影响。在社会经济处于边缘地位的发展中国家城市社区，气候变化的影响最为严重。圣地亚哥-德智利是一个拥有 770 万居民的中纬度安第斯城市，随着气温升高加剧了本地地面臭氧污染的影响，它已经在承受所谓的“气候惩罚”。与许多发展中国家的城市一样，圣地亚哥在社会经济方面高度隔离，这为研究同时发生的热浪和臭氧事件对不同富裕和贫困地区的影响提供了机会。在这里，我们将社会指标和气候敏感健康风险的现有数据集与天气和空气质量观测相结合，研究不同社会经济阶层对复合热-臭氧极端事件的反应。由于地面臭氧负荷的空间差异（对富裕社区来说更重），我们发现，极端高温（以及随之而来的臭氧污染加剧）对富裕居民的死亡率影响更大，而不论是否存在影响弱势群体的合并症和缺乏医疗保健。这些意外发现强调了需要进行特定地点的危害评估和基于社区的风险管理。
