The 2006 California Heat Wave: Impacts on Hospitalizations and Emergency Department Visits

Knowlton, Kim; Rotkin-Ellman, Miriam; King, Galatea; Margolis, Helene G.; Smith, Daniel G.; Solomon, Gina; Trent, Roger B.; English, Paul

doi:10.1289/ehp.11594

Cited by 614 publications

(564 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…Increased mortality, hospital admissions, and emergency room visits worldwide have been associated with vulnerable populations exposed to heat waves (Semenza et al 1999;Knowlton et al 2009;Anderson and Bell 2011). However, several studies reported that the adverse health effects of cold temperatures may be more significant than those of heat temperatures in Spain, Canada, Shanghai, and Taiwan (Lin et al 2011;Ma et al 2011;Martin et al 2012;Wang et al 2012).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of temperature on mortality in Hong Kong: a time series analysis

Chan

2014

Int J Biometeorol

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Although interest in assessing the impacts of hot temperature and mortality in Hong Kong has increased, less evidence on the effect of cold temperature on mortality is available. We examined both the effects of heat and cold temperatures on daily mortality in Hong Kong for the last decade (2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011). A quasi-Poisson model combined with a distributed lag non-linear model was used to assess the non-linear and delayed effects of temperatures on cause-specific and age-specific mortality.Non-linear effects of temperature on mortality were identified. The relative risk of non-accidental mortality associated with cold temperature (11.1°C, 1 st percentile of temperature) relative to 19.4°C(25 th percentile of temperature) was 1.17 (95% confidence interval (CI): 1.04, 1.29) for lags 0-13. The relative risk of non-accidental mortality associated with high temperature (31.5°C, 99 th percentile of temperature) relative to 27.8°C (75 th percentile of temperature) was 1.09 (95% CI: 1.03, 1.17) for lags 0-3. In Hong Kong, extreme cold and hot temperatures increased the risk of mortality. The effect of cold lasted longer and greater than that of heat. People older than 75 years were the most vulnerable group to cold temperature, while people aged 65-74 were the most vulnerable group to hot temperature.Our findings may have implications for developing intervention strategies for extreme cold and hot temperatures.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of temperature on mortality in Hong Kong: a time series analysis

Chan

2014

Int J Biometeorol

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“…However, there are relatively few studies characterizing the subgroups vulnerable to heat-related morbidity, and these results are inconsistent. While some studies examining the association of temperature with emergency department visits, hospitalizations, or ambulance dispatches imply that younger or middle-aged adults have higher heat-related risks [16–18], others claim that elderly people have higher heat-related risks during heat waves [19,20] and warm seasons [21,22]. …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of high ambient temperature on ambulance dispatches in different age groups in Fukuoka, Japan

Kotani

Ueda

Seposo

et al. 2018

Global Health Action

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Background: The elderly population has been the primary target of intervention to prevent heat-related illnesses. According to the literature, the highest risks have been observed among the elderly in the temperature–mortality relationship. However, findings regarding the temperature–morbidity relationship are inconsistent. Objectives: This study aimed to examine the association of temperature with ambulance dispatches due to acute illnesses, stratified by age group. Specifically, we explored the optimum temperature, at which the relative health risks were found to be the lowest, and quantified the health risk associated with higher temperatures among different age groups. Methods: We used the data for ambulance dispatches in Fukuoka, Japan, during May and September from 2005 to 2012. The data were grouped according to age in 20-year increments. We explored the pattern of the association of ambulance dispatches with temperature using a smoothing spline curve to identify the optimum temperature for each age group. Then, we applied a distributed lag nonlinear model to estimate the risks of the 85th–95th percentile temperature relative to the overall optimum temperature, for each age group. Results: The relative risk of ambulance dispatches at the 85th and 95th percentile temperature for all ages was 1.08 [95% confidence interval (CI): 1.05, 1.12] and 1.12 (95% CI: 1.08, 1.16), respectively. In comparison, among age groups, the optimum temperature was observed as 25.0°C, 23.2°C, and 25.3°C for those aged 0–19, 60–79, and ≥80, respectively. The optimum temperature could not be determined for those aged 20–39 and 40–59. The relative risks of high temperature tended to be higher for those aged 20–39 and 40–59 than those for other age groups. Conclusions: We did not find any definite difference in the effect of high temperature on ambulance dispatches for different age groups. However, more measures should be taken for younger and middle-aged people to avoid heat-related illnesses.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, a particularly severe heat wave in 2006 was linked with increases in emergency department visits and hospitalizations (Knowlton et al 2009) and at least 146 deaths (California Department of Health Services 2007). Among the most affected was the Latino community in agricultural regions (Knowlton et al 2009), who face relatively high exposure to extreme heat due to extensive outdoor work. In fact, the Latino population continues to be at disproportionately high climate risk across the United States, supporting the relatively wide sentiment within the Latino community that climate change is a serious problem that should be addressed (Leiserowitz and Akerlof 2010).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Variables examined include the total number of days in a month with maximum temperatures exceeding 40.6°C (Luber and McGeehin 2008), heat stress due to high relative humidity (Knowlton et al 2009) and nighttime temperatures Greene and Kalkstein 1996). Heat stress has been found to be especially important in terms of societal impact in recent studies (Mastrangelo et al 2006) and has been applied within the context of PEA (Sippel and Otto 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Climate change, climate justice and the application of probabilistic event attribution to summer heat extremes in the California Central Valley

et al. 2015

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Probabilistic event attribution (PEA) is an important tool for assessing the contribution of climate change to extreme weather events. Here, PEA is applied to explore the climate attribution of recent extreme heat events in California's Central Valley. Heat waves have become progressively more severe due to increasing relative humidity and nighttime temperatures, which increases the health risks of exposed communities, especially Latino farmworkers and other socioeconomically disadvantaged communities. Using a superensemble of simulations with the Hadley Centre Regional Model (HadRM3P), we find that (1) simulations of the hottest summer days during the 2000s were twice as likely to occur using observed levels of greenhouse gases than in a counterfactual world without major human activities, suggesting a strong relationship between heat extremes and the increase in human emissions of greenhouse gases, (2) detrimental impacts of heat on public health-relevant variables, such as the number of days above 40°C, can be quantified and attributed to human Climatic Change (2015) 133:427-438 DOI 10.1007/s10584-015-1474-

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The 2006 California Heat Wave: Impacts on Hospitalizations and Emergency Department Visits

Cited by 614 publications

References 32 publications

Effects of temperature on mortality in Hong Kong: a time series analysis

Effects of temperature on mortality in Hong Kong: a time series analysis

Effects of high ambient temperature on ambulance dispatches in different age groups in Fukuoka, Japan

Climate change, climate justice and the application of probabilistic event attribution to summer heat extremes in the California Central Valley

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