Background:High temperatures have substantial impacts on mortality and, with growing concerns about climate change, numerous studies have developed projections of future heat-related deaths around the world. Projections of temperature-related mortality are often limited by insufficient information to formulate hypotheses about population sensitivity to high temperatures and future demographics.Objectives:The present study derived projections of temperature-related mortality in New York City by taking into account future patterns of adaptation or demographic change, both of which can have profound influences on future health burdens.Methods:We adopted a novel approach to modeling heat adaptation by incorporating an analysis of the observed population response to heat in New York City over the course of eight decades. This approach projected heat-related mortality until the end of the 21st century based on observed trends in adaptation over a substantial portion of the 20th century. In addition, we incorporated a range of new scenarios for population change until the end of the 21st century. We then estimated future heat-related deaths in New York City by combining the changing temperature–mortality relationship and population scenarios with downscaled temperature projections from the 33 global climate models (GCMs) and two Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs).Results:The median number of projected annual heat-related deaths across the 33 GCMs varied greatly by RCP and adaptation and population change scenario, ranging from 167 to 3,331 in the 2080s compared with 638 heat-related deaths annually between 2000 and 2006.Conclusions:These findings provide a more complete picture of the range of potential future heat-related mortality risks across the 21st century in New York City, and they highlight the importance of both demographic change and adaptation responses in modifying future risks.Citation:Petkova EP, Vink JK, Horton RM, Gasparrini A, Bader DA, Francis JD, Kinney PL. 2017. Towards more comprehensive projections of urban heat-related mortality: estimates for New York City under multiple population, adaptation, and climate scenarios. Environ Health Perspect 125:47–55; http://dx.doi.org/10.1289/EHP166

A perennial problem facing survey researchers is what to do with "don't know" and "no opinion" responses. For the kindred problems of "nonresponse" (refusals and "not at homes") and "not applicable" codings, commonly accepted guidelines have evolved. But no guidelines exist for handling "don't know" and "no opinion" responses. One of the reasons for this is that little systematic investigation of the problem has been made. Instead, each researcher has been left to make individual assumptions about the nature of the responses and/or their distribution.This study focuses on an investigation of the assumption of randomness in nonresponse. The research results presented below suggest that it is invalid. Aggregate distributions provide only the weakest evidence for (or against) the hypothesis of randomness. Better evidence is obtained by determining whether a nonsubstantive response is systematically related to respondent attributes or to characteristics of the data-gathering procedure. Also, the aggregate distribution argument misses the point of the effects of hypothesis testing. Hypotheses tested by survey analysts seldom involve the full set of items in their questionnaires. If nonsubstantive responses are systematic and if a large number appear for the set of items employed for testing the hypothesis, these nonsubstantive responses (NSRs) are going to have some kind of systematic effect on the test if they are treated inappropriately. PRIOR RESEARCHIn his analysis of item nonresponse to a mail questionnaire, Ferber provided evidence to suggest nonrandomness. 1 He demonstrated that item nonresponse is systematically related to sex, age, education, and household composition. 2 In addition, he found statistically significant relationships at the .01 level between the index of item nonresponse and region, city size, and occupation.Regarding systematic relationships between NRSs and data-gathering procedures, Ferber indicated a relationship between the type of question asked and frequency of nonresponse.' On the other hand, he did not find

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