Health impact of the 2008 cold spell on mortality in subtropical China: the climate and health impact national assessment study (CHINAs)

Environmental Health

Research

Ye Wu Zhang¹  Xiao Feng Wang¹  Xin Gu¹  Shannon Rutherford²  Cordia Chu²  Yong Hui Zhang³  Hua Liang Lin⁴  Jian Peng Xiao⁴  Wei Lin Zeng⁴  Wen Jun Ma⁴  Tao Liu⁴  Yuan Luo⁴  Li Jun Wang⁵  Mai Geng Zhou⁵ 

[1] Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 102206, Beijing, China;Griffith University, 4111, Brisbane, Australia;Guangdong Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 511430, Guangzhou, China;Guangdong Provincial Institute of Public Health, Guangdong Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 511430, Guangzhou, China;Environment and Health, Guangdong Provincial Key Medical Discipline of Twelfth Five-Year Plan, 511430, Guangzhou, China;The National Center for Chronic and Noncommunicable Disease Control and Prevention, 100050, Beijing, China;

关键词: Cold spell;    Mortality;    China;    Subtropical;    Extreme temperatures;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1476-069X-13-60

 received in 2014-04-11, accepted in 2014-07-14,  发布年份 2014

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundMany studies have investigated heat wave related mortality, but less attention has been given to the health effects of cold spells in the context of global warming. The 2008 cold spell in China provided a unique opportunity to estimate the effects of the 2008 cold spell on mortality in subtropical regions, spatial heterogeneity of the effects, stratification effect and added effects caused by sustained cold days.MethodsThirty-six study communities were selected from 15 provinces in subtropical China. Daily mortality and meteorological data were collected for each community from 2006 to 2010. A distributed lag linear non-linear model (DLNM) with a lag structure of up to 27 days was used to analyze the association between the 2008 cold spell and mortality. Multivariate meta-analyses were used to combine the cold effects across each community.ResultsThe 2008 cold spell increased mortality by 43.8% (95% CI: 34.8% ~ 53.4%) compared to non-cold spell days with the highest effects in southern and central China. The effects were more pronounced for respiratory mortality (RESP) than for cardiovascular (CVD) or cerebrovascular mortality (CBD), for females more than for males, and for the elderly aged ≥75 years old more than for younger people. Overall, 148,279 excess deaths were attributable to the 2008 cold spell. The cold effect was mainly from extreme low temperatures rather than sustained cold days during this 2008 cold spell.ConclusionsThe 2008 cold spell increased mortality in subtropical China, which was mainly attributable to the low temperature rather than the sustained duration of the cold spell. The cold effects were spatially heterogeneous and modified by individual-specific characteristics such as gender and age.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Zhou et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2014. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.