High ambient temperature and mortality: a review of epidemiologic studies from 2001 to 2008
By Rupa Basu. Environmental Health, 2009
1,082 citations recorded by the source corpus.
BackgroundThis review examines recent evidence on mortality from elevated ambient temperature for studies published from January 2001 to December 2008.MethodsPubMed was used to search for the following keywords: temperature, apparent temperature, heat, heat index, and mortality. The search was limited to the English language and epidemiologic studies. Studies that reported mortality counts or excess deaths following heat waves were excluded so that the focus remained on general ambient temperature and mortality in a variety of locations. Studies focusing on cold temperature effects were also excluded.ResultsThirty-six total studies were presented in three tables: 1) elevated ambient temperature and mortality; 2) air pollutants as confounders and/or effect modifiers of the elevated ambient temperature and mortality association; and 3) vulnerable subgroups of the elevated ambient temperature-mortality association. The evidence suggests that particulate matter with less than 10 um in aerodynamic diameter and ozone may confound the association, while ozone was an effect modifier in the warmer months in some locations. Nonetheless, the independent effect of temperature and mortality was withheld. Elevated temperature was associated with increased risk for those dying from cardiovascular, respiratory, cerebrovascular, and some specific cardiovascular diseases, such as ischemic heart disease, congestive heart failure, and myocardial infarction. Vulnerable subgroups also included: Black racial/ethnic group, women, those with lower socioeconomic status, and several age groups, particularly the elderly over 65 years of age as well as infants and young children.ConclusionMany of these outcomes and vulnerable subgroups have only been identified in recent studies and varied by location and study population. Thus, region-specific policies, especially in urban areas, are vital to the mitigation of heat-related deaths.
Subfields: Critical Care and Intensive Care Medicine, Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/60c5249b9baec28e82e869c938cdc770978d4902
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In Critical Care and Intensive Care Medicine
In Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis
Citations in the corpus
- Moist Heat Stress on a Hotter Earth (2020, background): “…heat generation and affects susceptible people: the very young and very old, those with chronic illness and/or taking a wide variety of common medications and drugs, specific ethnic groups, women, and those with lower socioeconomic status (Basu 2009, Kjellstrom et al. 2009a, Gonzalez et al. 2010).”