Geospatial context of social and environmental factors associated with health risk during temperature extremes: Review and discussion

County level study of the interaction effect of PM2.5 and climate sustainability on mortality in China

Introduction

PM2.5 and climate change are two major public health concerns, with majority of the research on their interaction focused on the synergistic effect, particularly for extreme events such as hot or cold temperatures. The climate sustainability index (CLS) was introduced to comprehensively explore the impact of climate change and the interactive effect on human health with air pollution.

Methods

In this study, a county-level panel data in China was collected and used. The generalized additive model (GAM) and geographically and temporally weighted regression (GTWR) was used to explore the interactive and spatial effect on mortality between CLS and PM2.5.

Results and discussions

Individually, when CLS is higher than 150 or lower than 50, the mortality is higher. Moreover, when PM2.5 is more than 35 μg/m3, the influence on mortality is significantly increased as PM2.5 concentration rises; when PM2.5 is above 70 μg/m3, the trend is sharp. A nonlinear antagonistic effect between CLS and PM2.5 was found in this study, proving that the combined adverse health effects of climate change and air pollution, especially when CLS was lower (below 100) and PM2.5 was higher (above 35 μg/m3), the antagonistic effect was much stronger. From a spatial perspective, the impact of CLS and PM2.5 on mortality varies in different geographical regions. A negative and positive influence of CLS and PM2.5 was found in east China, especially in the northeastern and northern regions, -which were heavily polluted. This study illustrated that climate sustainability, at certain level, could mitigate the adverse health influence of air pollution, and provided a new perspective on health risk mitigation from pollution reduction and climate adaptation.

Exposure to Abnormally Hot Temperature and the Demand for Commercial Health Insurance

Using the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study, this paper studies the impact of abnormal hot temperature on residents' demand for commercial health insurance. The results show that for every 1°F rise in abnormal temperature, the probability of people buying commercial health insurance increased by 6%. Furthermore, the abnormal hot temperature has a more significant impact on the commercial health insurance demand of women, residents in the South and residents in the East. Channel analysis shows that abnormal hot temperature affects the demand for commercial health insurance through two channels: increasing residents' concern about climate risk and affecting health. This paper provides evidence for actively promoting sustainable development and improving the construction of medical security system.

Investigating Health Context: Using Geospatial Big Data Ecosystem (Preprint)

Background

Objective

Methods

Results

Conclusions