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Vulnerability to the mortality effects of warm temperature in the districts of England and Wales

Nature Climate Change volume 4, pages 269–273 (2014)Cite this article

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Abstract

Warm temperatures adversely affect disease occurrence and death, in extreme conditions as well as when the temperature changes are more modest1,2. Therefore climate change, which is expected to affect both average temperatures and temperature variability, is likely to impact health even in temperate climates. Climate change risk assessment is enriched if there is information on vulnerability and resilience to effects of temperature. Some studies have analysed socio-demographic characteristics that make individuals vulnerable to adverse effects of temperature1,2,3,4. Less is known about community-level vulnerability. We used geo-coded mortality and environmental data and Bayesian spatial methods to conduct a national small-area analysis of the mortality effects of warm temperature for all 376 districts in England and Wales. In the most vulnerable districts, those in London and south/southeast England, odds of dying from cardiorespiratory causes increased by more than 10% for 1 °C warmer temperature, compared with virtually no effect in the most resilient districts, which were in the far north. A 2 °C warmer summer may result in 1,552 (95% credible interval 1,307–1,762) additional deaths, about one-half of which would occur in 95 districts. The findings enable risk and adaptation analyses to incorporate local vulnerability to warm temperature and to quantify inequality in its effects.

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Figure 1: Percentage increase in the odds of cardiorespiratory death (women) for 1 °C increase in mean daily summer temperature above district-specific thresholds and the posterior probabilities that the estimated effect size is different from the national average.
Figure 2: Percentage increase in the odds of cardiorespiratory death (men) for 1 °C increase in mean daily summer temperature above district-specific thresholds and the posterior probabilities that the estimated effect size is different from the national average.
Figure 3: The number of additional cardiorespiratory deaths in the districts of England and Wales that would be expected during five summer months if temperatures were warmer by 2 °C.

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Acknowledgements

We thank R. Burnett, K. De Hoogh, B. Hoskins, A. Majeed, C. Paciorek, A. Pope III, J. Schwartz and A. Zanobetti for discussions on data sources, methods and results. We thank P. Hambly and F. Al-Aidarous for mortality and ozone data, respectively. The UK Small Area Health Statistics Unit is a part of the MRC-PHE Centre for Environment and Health, which is financially supported by Public Health England and the UK Medical Research Council. M.E. is supported by an MRC Strategic Award. P.E. acknowledges support from the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Biomedical Research Centre at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust. P.E. is an NIHR senior investigator. The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the NHS, the NIHR or the Department of Health.

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  1. MRC-PHE Centre for Environment and Health, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Imperial College London London W2 1PG, UK

Authors
  1. James E. Bennett
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  2. Marta Blangiardo
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  3. Daniela Fecht
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  4. Paul Elliott
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  5. Majid Ezzati
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Contributions

M.E., J.E.B. and P.E. designed the study concept. J.E.B., M.B. and M.E. developed the analytical approach. J.E.B. and D.F. collated and analysed gridded environmental data. J.E.B. analysed mortality effects. J.E.B. and M.E. wrote the first draft of the paper. All other authors contributed to interpretation of results and writing of the paper.

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Bennett, J., Blangiardo, M., Fecht, D. et al. Vulnerability to the mortality effects of warm temperature in the districts of England and Wales. Nature Clim Change 4, 269–273 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2123

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