Geographical Variations of the Minimum Mortality Temperature at a Global Scale

• Type of Material: Article
• Authors: Aurelio Tobías, CSIC - Instituto de Diagnostico Ambiental y Estudios del Agua (IDAEA); Masahiro Hashizume, Graduate School of Medicine; Yasushi Honda, National Institute for Environmental Studies of Japan; Francesco Sera, Università degli Studi di Firenze; Chris Fook Sheng Ng, Nagasaki University; Yoonhee Kim, The University of Tokyo; Dominic Roye, Universidad de Santiago de Compostela; Yeonseung Chung, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology; Tran Ngoc Dang, University of Medicine and Pharmacy Vietnam; Ho Kim, Seoul National University; Whanhee Lee, Yale University; Carmen Íñiguez, Universitat de València; Ana Vicedo-Cabrera, Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine; Rosana Abrutzky, Instituto de Investigaciones Gino Germani; Yuming Guo, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences; Shilu Tong, Queensland University of Technology; Micheline de Sousa Zanotti Stagliorio Coelho, Universidade de São Paulo; Paulo Hilario Nascimento Saldiva, Universidade de São Paulo; Eric Lavigne, Université d'Ottawa, Faculté de Médecine; Patricia M Correa, Universidad de los Andes, Chile; Nicolás Valdé Ortega, Universidad de los Andes, Chile; Haidong Kan, Fudan University; Samuel Osorio, Universidade de São Paulo; Jan Kyselý, Institute of Atmospheric Physics of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic; Aleš Urban, Institute of Atmospheric Physics of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic; Hans Orru, University of Tartu; Ene Indermitte, University of Tartu; Jouni JK Jaakkola, University of Oulu; Niilo RI Ryti, University of Oulu; Mathilde Pascal, Santé Publique France; Veronika Huber, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, de Sevilla; Alexandra Schneider, Helmholtz Center Munich German Research Center for Environmental Health; Klea Katsouyanni, Ethnikó ke Kapodistriakó Panepistímio Athinón; Antonis Analitis, Ethnikó ke Kapodistriakó Panepistímio Athinón; Alireza Entezari, Hakim Sabzevari University; Fatemeh Mayvaneh, Hakim Sabzevari University; Patrick Goodman, Technological University Dublin; Ariana Zeka, Brunel University London; Paola Michelozzi, Lazio Regional Health Service; Francesca de'Donato, Lazio Regional Health Service; Barrak Alahmad, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health; Magali H Diaz, Instituto Nacional de Salud Pública. México; César de la Cruz Valencia, Instituto Nacional de Salud Pública. México; Ala Overcenco, National Agency for Public Health of the Ministry of Health; Danny Houthuijs, National Institute for Public Health and the Environment; Caroline Ameling, National Institute for Public Health and the Environment; Shilpa Rao, Norwegian Institute of Public Health; Francesco Di Ruscio, Norwegian Institute of Public Health; Gabriel Carrasco, Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, Instituto de Medicina Tropical Alexander von Humboldt; Xerxes Seposo, Nagasaki University; Baltazar Nunes, Instituto Nacional de Saúde Dr. Ricardo Jorge; Joana Madureira, Instituto Nacional de Saúde Dr. Ricardo Jorge; Iulian H Holobaca, Universitatea Babeș-Bolyai; Noah Scovronick, Emory University; Fiorella Acquaotta, Università degli Studi di Torino; Bertil Forsberg, Umeå Universitet; Christofer Åström, Umeå Universitet; Martina S Ragettli, Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (Swiss TPH); Yue-Liang Leon Guo, National Taiwan University Hospital; Bing-Yu Chen, National Health Research Institutes Taiwan; Shanshan Li, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences; Valentina Colistro, Universidad de la Republica Facultad de Medicina; Antonella Zanobetti, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health; Joel Schwartz, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health; Do van Dung, University of Medicine and Pharmacy Vietnam; Ben Armstrong, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine; Antonio Gasparrini, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
• Language: English
• Date: 2021-10-01
• Publisher: Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc
• Publication Version: Final Published Version
• Copyright Statement: © 2021 The Authors. Published by Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. on behalf of The Environmental Epidemiology. All rights reserved.
• License: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International
• Final Published Version (URL): http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/EE9.0000000000000169
• Title of Journal or Parent Work: Environmental Epidemiology
• Volume: 5
• Issue: 5
• Start Page: E169
• End Page: E169
• Grant/Funding Information: A.T. was supported by the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Invitational Fellowships for Research in Japan (S18149). Y.H. and M.H. were supported by the Environment Research and Technology Development Fund (S-14) of the Ministry of the Environment, Japan. F.S. and A.G. were supported by the Medical Research Council-UK (Grant ID: MR/R013349/1), the Natural Environment Research Council UK (Grant ID: NE/R009384/1), and the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Project Exhaustion (Grant ID: 820655). J.M. was supported by a fellowship of the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (SFRH/ BPD/115112/2016). N.S. was supported by the NIEHS-funded HERCULES Center (P30ES019776).
• Keywords: Minimum mortality temperature; Multi-country; Time-series; Climate; Multi-city; Distributed lag nonlinear models; Adaptation
• Research Categories: Health Sciences, Public Health; Environmental Sciences; Health Sciences, Epidemiology; Geography

Abstract

Background: Minimum mortality temperature (MMT) is an important indicator to assess the temperature-mortality association, indicating long-term adaptation to local climate. Limited evidence about the geographical variability of the MMT is available at a global scale. Methods: We collected data from 658 communities in 43 countries under different climates. We estimated temperature-mortality associations to derive the MMT for each community using Poisson regression with distributed lag nonlinear models. We investigated the variation in MMT by climatic zone using a mixed-effects meta-analysis and explored the association with climatic and socioeconomic indicators. Results: The geographical distribution of MMTs varied considerably by country between 14.2 and 31.1 ºC decreasing by latitude. For climatic zones, the MMTs increased from alpine (13.0 ºC) to continental (19.3 ºC), temperate (21.7 ºC), arid (24.5 ºC), and tropical (26.5 ºC). The MMT percentiles (MMTPs) corresponding to the MMTs decreased from temperate (79.5th) to continental (75.4th), arid (68.0th), tropical (58.5th), and alpine (41.4th). The MMTs indreased by 0.8 ºC for a 1 ºC rise in a community's annual mean temperature, and by 1 ºC for a 1 ºC rise in its SD. While the MMTP decreased by 0.3 centile points for a 1 ºC rise in a community's annual mean temperature and by 1.3 for a 1 ºC rise in its SD. Conclusions: The geographical distribution of the MMTs and MMTPs is driven mainly by the mean annual temperature, which seems to be a valuable indicator of overall adaptation across populations. Our results suggest that populations have adapted to the average temperature, although there is still more room for adaptation.