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Monteiro dos Santos D, Libonati R, Garcia BN, Geirinhas JL, Salvi BB, Lima e Silva E, Rodrigues JA, Peres LF, Russo A, Gracie R, Gurgel H, Trigo RM. Twenty-first-century demographic and social inequalities of heat-related deaths in Brazilian urban areas. PLoS One 2024; 19:e0295766. [PMID: 38265975 PMCID: PMC10807764 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0295766] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/11/2023] [Accepted: 11/28/2023] [Indexed: 01/26/2024] Open
Abstract
Population exposure to heat waves (HWs) is increasing worldwide due to climate change, significantly affecting society, including public health. Despite its significant vulnerabilities and limited adaptation resources to rising temperatures, South America, particularly Brazil, lacks research on the health impacts of temperature extremes, especially on the role played by socioeconomic factors in the risk of heat-related illness. Here, we present a comprehensive analysis of the effects of HWs on mortality rates in the 14 most populous urban areas, comprising approximately 35% of the country's population. Excess mortality during HWs was estimated through the observed-to-expected ratio (O/E) for total deaths during the events identified. Moreover, the interplay of intersectionality and vulnerability to heat considering demographics and socioeconomic heterogeneities, using gender, age, race, and educational level as proxies, as well as the leading causes of heat-related excess death, were assessed. A significant increase in the frequency was observed from the 1970s (0-3 HWs year-1) to the 2010s (3-11 HWs year-1), with higher tendencies in the northern, northeastern, and central-western regions. Over the 2000-2018 period, 48,075 (40,448-55,279) excessive deaths were attributed to the growing number of HWs (>20 times the number of landslides-related deaths for the same period). Nevertheless, our event-based surveillance analysis did not detect the HW-mortality nexus, reinforcing that extreme heat events are a neglected disaster in Brazil. Among the leading causes of death, diseases of the circulatory and respiratory systems and neoplasms were the most frequent. Critical regional differences were observed, which can be linked to the sharp North-South inequalities in terms of socioeconomic and health indicators, such as life expectancy. Higher heat-related excess mortality was observed for low-educational level people, blacks and browns, older adults, and females. Such findings highlight that the strengthening of primary health care combined with reducing socioeconomic, racial, and gender inequalities represents a crucial step to reducing heat-related deaths.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Renata Libonati
- Departamento de Meteorologia, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
- Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências, Instituto Dom Luiz, Lisbon, Portugal
- Forest Research Centre, School of Agriculture, University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal
| | - Beatriz N. Garcia
- Departamento de Meteorologia, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
| | - João L. Geirinhas
- Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências, Instituto Dom Luiz, Lisbon, Portugal
| | - Barbara Bresani Salvi
- Escola Nacional de Saúde Pública Sergio Arouca - ENSP/ Fiocruz - Programa de Pós Graduação em Saúde Pública e Meio Ambiente
| | - Eliane Lima e Silva
- Departamento de Geografia, Universidade de Brasilia, Distrito Federal, Brazil
- LMI Sentinela, International Joint Laboratory “Sentinela” (Fiocruz, UnB, IRD), Distrito Federal, Brazil
| | - Julia A. Rodrigues
- Departamento de Meteorologia, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
| | - Leonardo F. Peres
- Departamento de Meteorologia, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
| | - Ana Russo
- Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências, Instituto Dom Luiz, Lisbon, Portugal
| | - Renata Gracie
- Instituto de Comunicação e Informação Científica e Tecnológica em Saúde - ICICT/Fiocruz Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
| | - Helen Gurgel
- Departamento de Geografia, Universidade de Brasilia, Distrito Federal, Brazil
- LMI Sentinela, International Joint Laboratory “Sentinela” (Fiocruz, UnB, IRD), Distrito Federal, Brazil
| | - Ricardo M. Trigo
- Departamento de Meteorologia, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
- Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências, Instituto Dom Luiz, Lisbon, Portugal
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Masselot P, Mistry M, Vanoli J, Schneider R, Iungman T, Garcia-Leon D, Ciscar JC, Feyen L, Orru H, Urban A, Breitner S, Huber V, Schneider A, Samoli E, Stafoggia M, de'Donato F, Rao S, Armstrong B, Nieuwenhuijsen M, Vicedo-Cabrera AM, Gasparrini A. Excess mortality attributed to heat and cold: a health impact assessment study in 854 cities in Europe. Lancet Planet Health 2023; 7:e271-e281. [PMID: 36934727 DOI: 10.1016/s2542-5196(23)00023-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 10.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/14/2022] [Revised: 01/24/2023] [Accepted: 01/27/2023] [Indexed: 06/18/2023]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Heat and cold are established environmental risk factors for human health. However, mapping the related health burden is a difficult task due to the complexity of the associations and the differences in vulnerability and demographic distributions. In this study, we did a comprehensive mortality impact assessment due to heat and cold in European urban areas, considering geographical differences and age-specific risks. METHODS We included urban areas across Europe between Jan 1, 2000, and Dec 12, 2019, using the Urban Audit dataset of Eurostat and adults aged 20 years and older living in these areas. Data were extracted from Eurostat, the Multi-country Multi-city Collaborative Research Network, Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, and Copernicus. We applied a three-stage method to estimate risks of temperature continuously across the age and space dimensions, identifying patterns of vulnerability on the basis of city-specific characteristics and demographic structures. These risks were used to derive minimum mortality temperatures and related percentiles and raw and standardised excess mortality rates for heat and cold aggregated at various geographical levels. FINDINGS Across the 854 urban areas in Europe, we estimated an annual excess of 203 620 (empirical 95% CI 180 882-224 613) deaths attributed to cold and 20 173 (17 261-22 934) attributed to heat. These corresponded to age-standardised rates of 129 (empirical 95% CI 114-142) and 13 (11-14) deaths per 100 000 person-years. Results differed across Europe and age groups, with the highest effects in eastern European cities for both cold and heat. INTERPRETATION Maps of mortality risks and excess deaths indicate geographical differences, such as a north-south gradient and increased vulnerability in eastern Europe, as well as local variations due to urban characteristics. The modelling framework and results are crucial for the design of national and local health and climate policies and for projecting the effects of cold and heat under future climatic and socioeconomic scenarios. FUNDING Medical Research Council of UK, the Natural Environment Research Council UK, the EU's Horizon 2020, and the EU's Joint Research Center.
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Affiliation(s)
- Pierre Masselot
- Department of Public Health, Environments and Society, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, London, UK.
| | - Malcolm Mistry
- Department of Public Health, Environments and Society, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, London, UK; Department of Economics, Ca' Foscari University of Venice, Venice, Italy
| | - Jacopo Vanoli
- Department of Public Health, Environments and Society, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, London, UK
| | - Rochelle Schneider
- Department of Public Health, Environments and Society, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, London, UK; Centre on Climate Change and Planetary Health, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, London, UK; ϕ-Lab, European Space Agency, Frascati, Italy
| | - Tamara Iungman
- Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), Barcelona, Spain; Department of Experimental and Health Sciences, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain
| | | | | | - Luc Feyen
- Joint Research Centre, European Commission, Ispra, Italy
| | - Hans Orru
- Department of Family Medicine and Public Health, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia
| | - Aleš Urban
- Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Prague, Czech Republic; Faculty of Environmental Sciences, Czech University of Life Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic
| | - Susanne Breitner
- Institute of Epidemiology, Helmholtz Zentrum München, German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany; IBE-Chair of Epidemiology, LMU Munich, Munich, Germany
| | - Veronika Huber
- Institute of Epidemiology, Helmholtz Zentrum München, German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany; IBE-Chair of Epidemiology, LMU Munich, Munich, Germany
| | - Alexandra Schneider
- Institute of Epidemiology, Helmholtz Zentrum München, German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany
| | - Evangelia Samoli
- Department of Hygiene, Epidemiology and Medical Statistics, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece
| | - Massimo Stafoggia
- Department of Epidemiology, Lazio Regional Health Service/ASL Roma 1, Rome, Italy
| | - Francesca de'Donato
- Department of Epidemiology, Lazio Regional Health Service/ASL Roma 1, Rome, Italy
| | - Shilpa Rao
- Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Oslo, Norway
| | - Ben Armstrong
- Department of Public Health, Environments and Society, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, London, UK
| | - Mark Nieuwenhuijsen
- Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), Barcelona, Spain; Department of Experimental and Health Sciences, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain; CIBER Epidemiología y Salud Pública, Madrid, Spain
| | - Ana Maria Vicedo-Cabrera
- Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland; Oeschger Center for Climate Change Research, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
| | - Antonio Gasparrini
- Department of Public Health, Environments and Society, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, London, UK; Centre on Climate Change and Planetary Health, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, London, UK; Centre for Statistical Methodology, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, London, UK
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