Wittgenstein Centre Conference 2022
Population and Climate Change: The Defining Relationship of the 21st Century
Session 2: Climate Change and Mortality
Temporal variation of the temperature-mortality association in Spain: a nationwide analysis
Authors:
Dariya Ordanovich
Institute of Economy, Geography y Demography, Spanish National Research Council, Madrid, Spain
Aurelio Tobias
Institute of Environmental Assessment and Water Research, Spanish National Research Council, Barcelona, Spain
Diego Ramiro
Institute of Economy, Geography y Demography, Spanish National Research Council, Madrid, Spain
Abstract:
Present study aims to explore temporal variations of the minimum mortality temperature and mortality burden from heat and cold between 1979 and 2018. We collected individual all-cause mortality and climate reanalysis data for 4 decades at a daily time step. To estimate the temperature-mortality association for each decade, we fitted a quasi-Poisson time-series regression model using a distributed lag non-linear model with 21 days of lag. Despite the progressively warmer temperatures in Spain, we observed a persistent flattening of the exposure-response curves, which marked an expansion of the optimal temperature ranges for cold and heat. The adaptation has been produced to some extent in a non-uniform manner with a substantial decrease in cold-related mortality, while for the heat it became more apparent in the most recent decade only.
