The Role of Humidity in Associations of High Temperature with Mortality: A Multicountry, Multicity Study.

ABSTRACT:

Background

There is strong experimental evidence that physiologic stress from high temperatures is greater if humidity is higher. However, heat indices developed to allow for this have not consistently predicted mortality better than dry-bulb temperature.

Objectives

We aimed to clarify the potential contribution of humidity an addition to temperature in predicting daily mortality in summer by using a large multicountry dataset.

Methods

In 445 cities in 24 countries, we fit a time-series regression model for summer mortality with a distributed lag nonlinear model (DLNM) for temperature (up to lag 3) and supplemented this with a range of terms for relative humidity (RH) and its interaction with temperature. City-specific associations were summarized using meta-analytic

SUBMITTER: Armstrong B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6792461 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature