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Selecting Thresholds of Heat-Warning Systems with Substantial Enhancement of Essential Population Health Outcomes for Facilitating Implementation

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  • Shih-Chun Candice Lung

    (Research Center for Environmental Changes, Academia Sinica, Taipei 11529, Taiwan
    Department of Atmospheric Sciences, National Taiwan University, Taipei 10617, Taiwan
    Institute of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, National Taiwan University, Taipei 10617, Taiwan)

  • Jou-Chen Joy Yeh

    (Research Center for Environmental Changes, Academia Sinica, Taipei 11529, Taiwan)

  • Jing-Shiang Hwang

    (Institute of Statistical Science, Academia Sinica, Taipei 11529, Taiwan)

Abstract

Most heat-health studies identified thresholds just outside human comfort zones, which are often too low to be used in heat-warning systems for reducing climate-related health risks. We refined a generalized additive model for selecting thresholds with substantial health risk enhancement, based on Taiwan population records of 2000–2017, considering lag effects and different spatial scales. Reference-adjusted risk ratio (RaRR) is proposed, defined as the ratio between the relative risk of an essential health outcome for a threshold candidate against that for a reference; the threshold with the highest RaRR is potentially the optimal one. It was found that the wet-bulb globe temperature (WBGT) is a more sensitive heat-health indicator than temperature. At lag 0, the highest RaRR (1.66) with WBGT occurred in emergency visits of children, while that in hospital visits occurred for the working-age group (1.19), presumably due to high exposure while engaging in outdoor activities. For most sex, age, and sub-region categories, the RaRRs of emergency visits were higher than those of hospital visits and all-cause mortality; thus, emergency visits should be employed (if available) to select heat-warning thresholds. This work demonstrates the applicability of this method to facilitate the establishment of heat-warning systems at city or country scales by authorities worldwide.

Suggested Citation

  • Shih-Chun Candice Lung & Jou-Chen Joy Yeh & Jing-Shiang Hwang, 2021. "Selecting Thresholds of Heat-Warning Systems with Substantial Enhancement of Essential Population Health Outcomes for Facilitating Implementation," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(18), pages 1-21, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:18:p:9506-:d:632087
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    References listed on IDEAS

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