Temperature and Humidity Effects on Hospital Morbidity in Darwin, Australia

Background: Many studies have explored the relationship between temperature and health in the context of a changing climate, but few have considered the effects of humidity, particularly in tropical locations, on human health and well-being. To investigate this potential relationship, this study ass...

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Autores principales: James Goldie, Steven C. Sherwood, Donna Green, Lisa Alexander
Formato: article
Lenguaje:EN
Publicado: Ubiquity Press 2015
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Acceso en línea:https://doaj.org/article/873901894f1845c6a8975a6c868878af
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Sumario:Background: Many studies have explored the relationship between temperature and health in the context of a changing climate, but few have considered the effects of humidity, particularly in tropical locations, on human health and well-being. To investigate this potential relationship, this study assessed the main and interacting effects of daily temperature and humidity on hospital admission rates for selected heat-relevant diagnoses in Darwin, Australia. Methods: Univariate and bivariate Poisson generalized linear models were used to find statistically significant predictors and the admission rates within bins of predictors were compared to explore nonlinear effects. Findings: The analysis indicated that nighttime humidity was the most statistically significant predictor ('P' < 0.001), followed by daytime temperature and average daily humidity ('P' < 0.05). There was no evidence of a significant interaction between them or other predictors. The nighttime humidity effect appeared to be strongly nonlinear: Hot days appeared to have higher admission rates when they were preceded by high nighttime humidity. Conclusions: From this analysis, we suggest that heat-health policies in tropical regions similar to Darwin need to accommodate the effects of temperature and humidity at different times of day.