This thesis has been confirmed by researchers from the Unit of Climate Change, Health and Urban Environment of the National School of Health of the Carlos III Institute for Happiness (ISCIII), in a work that shows what influences the importance of evaluating the different elements in the management of heat waves from a health point of view.
The authors explained that while the meteorological definition of a heatwave is based on data about temperature, duration, and intensity, the definition related to health and associated mortality is broader.
In addition to including recorded temperatures and their density, they also include other issues such as demographic characteristics of the population, salary level, socio-economic aspects, social vulnerability, quality of housing, urban infrastructure and the presence or absence of green areas, among others. .
The heterogeneity of healthy heatwave temperature percentiles and their different temporal evolution depend largely on the influence of local factors on associated mortality.
According to the study, the temperature at which a heat wave is defined from a health point of view should not only be based on a fixed percentage for all locations in a geographic area, but should include all of these factors.
The results showed that more than half of the cases – 52.6% of cases – remained below the 95th percentile, which is consistent with the definition of a heat wave from a meteorological perspective.
“Using this percentage means that the heatwave prevention plan is not activated when necessary in more than half of the critical climate zones in Spain, with a consequent impact on deaths that could be avoided by activating the above-mentioned plan,” the researchers say.
Conversely, for areas with percentages higher than the 95th, “activating prevention plans in this percentage means activating them when it is not necessary.”
Scientists therefore suggest using lower than regional metrics when evaluating the activation of prevention plans due to high temperatures, which may help reduce deaths due to heat waves and adapt the number of alerts according to the actual exposure of the population.
The study proposes up to five geographic zones for each province, to which it links extreme temperature thresholds that would determine whether a heatwave is considered to have an impact on health.
DMC // RBF
By Impala News/Lusa
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