Recently, a super heat wave hit the United States again, and the high temperature has caused hundreds of deaths
This result was published in the journal The Lancet-Planetary Health on July 8, Beijing time.
"Heat death and freezing death are only extreme phenomena.
Responding to the "warmest" in history
Responding to the "warmest" in history Due to global warming, the 10 hottest years in human history all appeared after 2005
Data show that since 1880, the average temperature of the earth's surface has risen at a rate of 0.
A large amount of literature shows that exposure to outdoor high and low temperatures can cause various health burdens, such as excessive deaths (the difference between the number of deaths observed by epidemiologists and the normal number of deaths)
The Global Burden of Disease, Injury and Risk Factors Study (GBD) released in 2019 shows that unsuitable temperature is one of the top ten causes of death in the world
Zhao Qi, the first author of the paper and a professor at Shandong University, told the China Science Daily that due to factors such as population characteristics, geographic climate, and adaptability, the temperature-death dose-response curve varies greatly in different regions, and data from a few countries are not available.
He also pointed out that many developing countries, especially underdeveloped countries, do not yet have a reliable health care registration system, which is the main constraint that led to the lack of large-scale quantitative research in the past
In response to this problem, the Guo Yuming research group used the existing data of 43 countries collected by the Multi-Country and Multi-City Research Consortium (MCC) to simulate global data through modeling
It is reported that the MCC, established in 2014, aims to explore environmental exposure factors, especially the population health effects caused by climate change.
Guo Yuming said that, unlike previous studies, the sample size of this study is large and diverse, which is of particular significance to underdeveloped areas that lack high-quality death registration data and cannot engage in corresponding academic research
Face up to health threats
Face up to health threats Due to the large gap between countries, the research team adopted a grid research method—dividing the global spatial resolution into 0.
° × 0.
Earlier this year, "Nature-Climate Change" magazine published another study based on MCC, and Guo Yuming is also one of the authors of the article
This article focuses on excess deaths caused by global high and low temperatures and their changing trends
.
As a result of using more than 130 million real death registration data from 43 countries and regions, the author pointed out that this is the first global overview study of mortality under unsuitable temperature conditions from 2000 to 2019, and it is currently the largest and highest resolution study.
Investigation
.
Guo Yuming believes that the figure of 9.
43% is sufficient to show that temperature, like smoking, high blood pressure, air pollution and other factors, is a major threat to human health
.
"We call for decisive and coordinated action to raise public awareness of temperature as a health risk
.
"
Asia has the biggest challenge
Asia has the biggest challenge In terms of regional distribution, 51.
5% of global temperature-related excess deaths occurred in Asia, especially coastal cities in East Asia and South Asia
.
China has an annual average of nearly 1.
04 million excess deaths related to unsuitable temperatures, that is, 77 excess deaths per 100,000 people, which is slightly higher than the global average (74 people per 100,000)
.
Zhao Qi explained that this is largely related to the size of the population.
From the perspective of the number of excess deaths, Asia has the heaviest burden and the greatest challenge
.
It is worth noting that Europe has the highest excess mortality rate per 100,000 people due to high temperature exposure, while sub-Saharan Africa has the highest mortality rate per 100,000 people who die from the cold
.
Zhao Qi believes that this is due to the long-term adaptability of people to the health effects of unsuitable temperatures.
For example, people in tropical/subtropical regions are more tolerant to high temperatures and more sensitive to low temperatures.
On the contrary, high latitudes are more tolerant to low temperatures and to high temperatures.
More sensitive
.
He also reminded that from the perspective of mortality per 100,000 inhabitants, Latin America and the Caribbean and Southeast Asia are the lowest.
Sub-Saharan Africa and Eastern Europe have the heaviest disease burdens, reaching 5 times the global average.
Local public health authorities need additional Pay attention to and raise awareness of crowd protection
.
In addition, although Oceania accounts for only a small number of excess deaths, its excess death rate and rate are still considerable compared to other regions
.
Moreover, in Oceania, the number of deaths related to cold has dropped significantly, but the number of deaths related to high temperature has increased more
.
The author points out that this geographical difference indicates that the threat of unsuitable temperatures to health is a global problem and requires tailor-made protection strategies
.
From a time perspective, they found that from 2000 to 2019, the number of cold-related deaths decreased by 0.
51%, while the number of high-temperature-related deaths increased by 0.
21%, resulting in a net death rate due to cold and hot temperatures.
Down
.
However, Guo Yuming reminded that due to the inevitability of climate change, in the long run, the mortality rate related to global warming will continue to increase
.
(Source: China Science News Chen Huanhuan)
Related paper information:
https://doi.
org/10.
1016/S2542-5196(21)00081-4
https://doi.
org/10.
1016/S2542-5196(21)00081-4
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