Geographical Variations of the Minimum Mortality Temperature at a Global Scale: A Multicountry Study

• Main Author: Tobías, A
• Publication Date: 2021
• Other Authors: Hashizume, M, Honda Y, Sera, F, Ng, CFS, Kim, Y, Roye, D, Chung, Y, Dang, TN, Kim, H, Lee, W, Íñiguez, C, Vicedo-Cabrera, A, Abrutzky, R, Guo, Y, Tong, S, Coelho, MSZS, Saldiva, PHN, Lavigne, E, Correa, PM, Ortega, NV, Kan, H, Osorio, S, Kyselý, J, Urban, A, Orru, H, Indermitte, E, Jaakkola, JJK, Ryti, NRI, Pascal, M, Huber, V, Schneider, A, Katsouyanni, K, Analitis, A, Entezari, A, Mayvaneh, F, Goodman, P, Zeka, A, Michelozzi, P, de'Donato, F, Alahmad, B, Diaz, MH, De la Cruz, Valencia, C, Overcenco, A, Houthuijs, D, Ameling, C, Rao, S, Di Ruscio, F, Carrasco, G, Seposo, X, Nunes, B, Madureira, J, Holobaca, IH, Scovronick, N, Acquaotta, F, Forsberg, B, Åström, C, Ragettli, MS, Guo, YL, Chen, BY, Li, S, Colistro, V, Zanobetti, A, Schwartz, J, Dung, DV, Armstrong, B, Gasparrini, A
• Format: Article
• Language: eng
• Source: Repositórios Científicos de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (RCAAP)
• Download full: https://hdl.handle.net/10216/149533
• topic: Adaptation; Climate; Distributed lag nonlinear models; Minimum mortality temperature; Multi-city; Multi-country; Time-series

Background: Minimum mortality temperature (MMT) is an important indicator to assess the temperature-mortality association, indicating long-term adaptation to local climate. Limited evidence about the geographical variability of the MMT is available at a global scale. Methods: We collected data from 658 communities in 43 countries under different climates. We estimated temperature-mortality associations to derive the MMT for each community using Poisson regression with distributed lag nonlinear models. We investigated the variation in MMT by climatic zone using a mixed-effects meta-analysis and explored the association with climatic and socioeconomic indicators. Results: The geographical distribution of MMTs varied considerably by country between 14.2 and 31.1 °C decreasing by latitude. For climatic zones, the MMTs increased from alpine (13.0 °C) to continental (19.3 °C), temperate (21.7 °C), arid (24.5 °C), and tropical (26.5 °C). The MMT percentiles (MMTPs) corresponding to the MMTs decreased from temperate (79.5th) to continental (75.4th), arid (68.0th), tropical (58.5th), and alpine (41.4th). The MMTs indreased by 0.8 °C for a 1 °C rise in a community's annual mean temperature, and by 1 °C for a 1 °C rise in its SD. While the MMTP decreased by 0.3 centile points for a 1 °C rise in a community's annual mean temperature and by 1.3 for a 1 °C rise in its SD. Conclusions: The geographical distribution of the MMTs and MMTPs is driven mainly by the mean annual temperature, which seems to be a valuable indicator of overall adaptation across populations. Our results suggest that populations have adapted to the average temperature, although there is still more room for adaptation.