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. 2020 Jan;26(1):65-70.
doi: 10.1038/s41591-019-0721-y. Epub 2020 Jan 13.

Anomalously warm temperatures are associated with increased injury deaths

Robbie M Parks  1   2   3   4 , James E Bennett  1   2   5 , Helen Tamura-Wicks  1   2 , Vasilis Kontis  1   2 , Ralf Toumi  6 , Goodarz Danaei  7 , Majid Ezzati  8   9   10   11
Affiliations

Anomalously warm temperatures are associated with increased injury deaths

Robbie M Parks et al. Nat Med. 2020 Jan.

Abstract

Temperatures that deviate from the long-term local norm affect human health, and are projected to become more frequent as the global climate changes1. There are limited data on how such anomalies affect deaths from injuries. In the present study, we used data on mortality and temperature over 38 years (1980-2017) in the contiguous USA and formulated a Bayesian spatio-temporal model to quantify how anomalous temperatures, defined as deviations of monthly temperature from the local average monthly temperature over the entire analysis period, affect deaths from unintentional (transport, falls and drownings) and intentional (assault and suicide) injuries, by age group and sex. We found that a 1.5 °C anomalously warm year, as envisioned under the Paris Climate Agreement2, would be associated with an estimated 1,601 (95% credible interval 1,430-1,776) additional injury deaths. Of these additional deaths, 84% would occur in males, mostly in adolescence to middle age. These would comprise increases in deaths from drownings, transport, assault and suicide, offset partly by a decline in deaths from falls in older ages. The findings demonstrate the need for targeted interventions against injuries during periods of anomalously warm temperatures, especially as these episodes are likely to increase with global climate change.

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Conflict of interest statement

M.E. reports a charitable grant from AstraZeneca Young Health Programme, and personal fees from Prudential, Scor and Third Bridge, all outside the submitted work; all other authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1. Number of injury deaths, by type of unintentional (transport, falls, drownings and other) and intentional (assault and suicide) injury, by sex and age group in the contiguous USA for 1980–2017.
The top row shows the breakdown by type of injury and age group for males. The bottom row shows the breakdown by type of injury and age group for females.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2. National age-standardized death rates from 1980 to 2017, by type of injury, sex and month.
The top row shows the breakdown by type of injury for males. The bottom row shows the breakdown by type of injury for females.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3. Additional annual injury deaths for the 2017 US population in the year in which each month was +1.5 °C warmer compared with 1980–2017 average temperatures.
The top row shows the breakdown by type of injury, sex and age group. The bottom row shows the breakdown by type of injury, sex and month. Black dots represent net changes in deaths for each set of bars. See Extended Data Fig. 3 for results of the scenario of 2 °C warmer.
Fig. 4
Fig. 4. Percentage change in death rates in year in which each month was +1.5 °C compared with 1980–2017 average temperatures by type of injury, sex and age group or month.
a, Percentage change in death rates by injury, sex and age group. b, Percentage change in death rates by injury, sex and month. Colored dots show the posterior means and error bars represent 95% credible intervals, both obtained at the posterior draw level. See Extended Data Fig. 4 for the scenario of 2 °C warmer.
Extended Data Fig. 1
Extended Data Fig. 1. Graphic representation of temperature anomaly measure used in the analysis.
The graph shows how monthly temperatures in July two example states (Florida in red and Minnesota in blue) (left panel) for 1980–2017 are used to calculate temperature anomalies. As seen, a warmer state like Florida (top right) can have a smaller inter-annual variation in a particular month (here, July) compared with a cooler state like Minnesota (bottom right).
Extended Data Fig. 2
Extended Data Fig. 2. Average size of temperature anomaly (°C) from 1980 to 2017, by state and month.
The value for each state and month is the mean of the absolute size of anomaly, be it cold or warm, and hence gives an indication of the scale of anomalies around the local average temperatures.
Extended Data Fig. 3
Extended Data Fig. 3. Additional annual injury deaths for the 2017 US population in year in which each month was +2 °C warmer compared with 1980–2017 average temperatures.
The top row shows breakdown by type of injury, sex and age group. The bottom row shows the break down by type of injury, sex and month. Black dots represent net changes in deaths for each set of bars.
Extended Data Fig. 4
Extended Data Fig. 4. Percent change in death rates in year in which each month was +2 °C compared with 1980–2017 average temperatures by type of injury, sex and (A) age group or (B) month.
Colored dots show the posterior means and error bars represent 95% credible intervals, both obtained at the posterior draw level.
Extended Data Fig. 5
Extended Data Fig. 5
Number of deaths by type of transport injury, month, sex and age group in the contiguous United States for 1980–2017.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment in

References

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