Doctoral Dissertation Research: Climate-Health Vulnerability: Identifying Climate Thresholds for Heat-Related Illness

博士论文研究：气候-健康脆弱性：确定与热有关的疾病的气候阈值

• 批准号: 1434202
• 负责人: Charles Konrad
• 金额: $ 1.06万
• 依托单位: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2014-08-15 至 2016-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1434202&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Climate; Health

Heat is the leading cause of weather-related death in the United States. General circulation models of climate change project heat waves to increase in severity, duration, and intensity, placing future populations at greater risk for both heat-related illnesses and deaths. This project focuses on identifying the local to regional scale patterns of heat-related illness and the temperature thresholds that control these patterns. Temperature thresholds represent climate values (e.g., temperature, heat index, and humidity) beyond which heat-related illness emergency department admissions increase significantly. Identifying a temperature threshold allows for the activation of an early heat warning system or emergency response plan. Heat-related illness can be easily preventable through hydration or relocation to a cooler environment; therefore, interventions are a key component in reducing heat-related illness. This study will also identify high-risk populations that experience a disproportionate number of heat-related illness emergency department admissions. Previous research has investigated heat-related mortality and morbidity in urban cities. However, it has relatively neglected adverse health effects of heat in rural US locations. This study identifies high-risk populations and risk factors in both urban and rural locations (including those with at-risk agricultural and farm workers).This objective of this study is to understand the spatiotemporal patterns of heat-related illness and how they correspond to the spatial patterns of temperature thresholds. This research employs a multidisciplinary approach to understanding the climatic, environmental, and population factors that affect patterns of heat-related illness. It draws from the human - ecological approach of vulnerability theory, spatial statistics from geography, and climate threshold identification from climatology to determine the locations and factors by which climate impacts heat-related illness. The explicit spatiotemporal integration of available fine-grained morbidity data, census, and weather data in the methodology will be a novel contribution to climate-public health research and provide new findings about the environmental and socioeconomic factors that influence high rates of heat-related illness. A wide array of spatiotemporal relationships is identified for different time periods, ages, genders, and spatial locations. These relationships are established through a geographic information system (GIS) framework, an automated freeware (python) program to identify temperature thresholds, and several regression techniques, including as geographically weighted regression, spatial regression, and multi-level modelling. Though set in North Carolina and centered on heat-related illness, the methodology utilized in this study will also be applicable to other climate-related diseases (e.g. waterborne or respiratory diseases) and can also be used as a model to assess climate-health vulnerability in other geographic locations. In addition to academic dissemination, the results will be distributed to the NC Division of Public Health, Carolina's Integrated Science Assessments, the National Weather Service, NC Farmworker Ministry Committee and the North Carolina Farmworker Institute.

炎热是美国天气相关死亡的主要原因。气候变化的总体环流模型预测热浪的严重程度、持续时间和强度都会增加，使未来人口面临与热有关的疾病和死亡的更大风险。该项目的重点是确定与热相关的疾病的局部到区域范围的模式以及控制这些模式的温度阈值。温度阈值代表气候值（例如温度、高温指数和湿度），超过该值，与高温相关的疾病急诊入院人数会显着增加。确定温度阈值可以启动早期高温预警系统或应急响应计划。通过补充水分或转移到凉爽的环境可以轻松预防与热有关的疾病；因此，干预措施是减少与高温相关疾病的关键组成部分。这项研究还将确定因热相关疾病急诊入院人数过多的高危人群。先前的研究调查了城市中与高温相关的死亡率和发病率。然而，它相对忽视了美国农村地区高温对健康的不利影响。本研究确定了城市和农村地区的高危人群和风险因素（包括高危农业和农场工人）。本研究的目的是了解与热相关的疾病的时空模式以及它们如何与温度阈值的空间模式相对应。这项研究采用多学科方法来了解影响热相关疾病模式的气候、环境和人口因素。它借鉴了脆弱性理论的人类生态方法、地理学的空间统计以及气候学的气候阈值识别，以确定气候影响热相关疾病的位置和因素。该方法中现有的细粒度发病率数据、人口普查和天气数据的明确时空整合将为气候公共卫生研究做出新贡献，并提供有关影响热相关疾病高发率的环境和社会经济因素的新发现。不同时间段、年龄、性别和空间位置的广泛时空关系被识别。这些关系是通过地理信息系统 (GIS) 框架、用于识别温度阈值的自动化免费软件 (python) 程序以及多种回归技术（包括地理加权回归、空间回归和多级建模）建立的。尽管以北卡罗来纳州为背景，并以与热有关的疾病为中心，但本研究中使用的方法也适用于其他与气候相关的疾病（例如水传播或呼吸道疾病），也可以用作评估其他地理位置的气候健康脆弱性的模型。除了学术传播外，研究结果还将分发给北卡罗来纳州公共卫生部、卡罗来纳州综合科学评估、国家气象局、北卡罗来纳州农场工人部委员会和北卡罗来纳州农场工人研究所。