Economic status and temperature-related mortality in Asia

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articlepeer-review

  • Lim, Youn-Hee
  • Michelle L Bell
  • Haidong Kan
  • Yasushi Honda
  • Yue-Liang Leon Guo
  • Ho Kim

In developed countries, low latitude and high temperature are positively associated with the population's ability to adapt to heat. However, few studies have examined the effect of economic status on the relationship between long-term exposure to high temperature and health. We compared heterogeneous temperature-related mortality effects relative to the average summer temperature in high-socioeconomic-status (SES) cities to temperature-related effects in low-SES cities. In the first stage of the research, we conducted a linear regression analysis to quantify the mortality effects of high temperature (at or above the 95th percentile) in 32 cities in Taiwan, China, Japan, and Korea. In the second stage, we used a meta-regression to examine the association between mortality risk with average summer temperature and gross domestic product (GDP) per capita. In cities with a low GDP per capita (less than 20,000 USD), the effects of temperature were detrimental to the population if the long-term average summer temperature was high. In contrast, in cities with a high GDP per capita, temperature-related mortality risk was not significantly related to average summer temperature. The relationship between long-term average summer temperature and the short-term effects of high temperatures differed based on the city-level economic status.

Original languageEnglish
JournalInternational Journal of Biometeorology
Volume59
Issue number10
Pages (from-to)1405-1412
Number of pages8
ISSN0020-7128
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2015
Externally publishedYes

    Research areas

  • Asia/epidemiology, Cities/epidemiology, Gross Domestic Product, Humans, Mortality/trends, Regression Analysis, Socioeconomic Factors, Temperature, Urban Health

ID: 230070738