The effect of cold waves on mortality in urban and rural areas of Madrid

Environmental Sciences Europe

Julio Díaz¹  José Antonio López-Bueno¹  Dante Culqui¹  Miguel Ángel Navas-Martín¹  Cristina Linares¹  Isidro Juan Mirón²  María Yolanda Luna³  Gerardo Sánchez-Martínez⁴ 

[1] National School of Public Health, Carlos III Institute of Health (ISCIII), Avda. Monforte de Lemos 5, 28029, Madrid, Spain;Regional Health Authority of Castile La Mancha, Av. Estación, Torrijos, 45500, Toledo, Spain;State Meteorological Agency (AEMET), Leonardo Prieto Castro, 8, Ciudad Universitaria, 28071, Madrid, Spain;The UNEP DTU Partnership, Akademivej, 358, Kgs. Lyngby, 2800, Copenhagen, Denmark;

关键词: Cold waves;    Mortality;    Urban–rural;    Deprivation;    Building quality;    Aging;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12302-021-00512-z

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundWhile many studies analyze the effect of extreme thermal events on health, little has been written about the effects of extreme cold on mortality. This scarcity of papers is particularly relevant when we search studies about extreme cold on the health of rural population. Therefore, we tried to analyze the effect of cold waves on urban areas and rural areas from Madrid and to test whether differentiated effects exist between both population classes. For this purpose, we analyzed data from the municipalities with over 10,000 inhabitants for the period from January 1, 2000 through December 31, 2013. Municipalities were classified as urban or rural (Eurostat), and they were grouped into similar climatological zones: Urban Metropolitan Centre (UMC), Rural Northern Mountains (RNM), Rural Centre (RC) and Southern Rural (SR). The dependent variable was the daily mortality rate due to natural causes per million inhabitants (CIE-X: A00-R99) that occurred between the months of November and March for the period. The independent variable was minimum daily temperature (ºC) (Tmin). Social and demographic contextual variables were used, including: population > age 64 (%), deprivation index and housing indicators. The analysis was carried out in three phases: (1) determination of the threshold temperature (Tthreshold) which defines the cold waves; (2) determination of the relative risk (RR) for cold waves using Poisson linear regression (GLM); and (3) using GLM of the binomial family, Odds Ratios (OR) were calculated to analyze the relationship between the frequency of the appearance of cold waves and the socioeconomic variables.ResultsThe UMC zone experienced 585 extreme cold events related to attributable increases in the mortality rate. The average number of cold waves in the rural zones was 319. The primary risk factor was the percentage of population over age 64, and the primary protective factor was housing rehabilitation. As a whole, the period experienced more cold waves (1542) than heat waves (1130).ConclusionThe UMC was more vulnerable than the rural areas. Furthermore, the results support the development of prevention policies, especially considering the fact that cold wave events were more frequent than heat waves.

【 授权许可】

CC BY