By ecoRI
News staff
PROVIDENCE — A new study that projects an increase in deaths and
emergency visits in Rhode Island as climate change pushes summertime
temperatures higher by the end of the century, has also revealed a finding of
more immediate public-health concern: Even in the present day, when
temperatures rise above 75 degrees there is a noticeable increase in medical
distress among state residents of all ages.
The study by
researchers at Brown University and the Rhode Island Department of Health is
based on a detailed statistical analysis of emergency department visits,
deaths, weather data and possibly confounding factors, such as ozone, from
recent years.
The researchers could tell from the records whether emergency
doctors thought a patient’s condition was related to heat or dehydration.
“Our primary finding is that as temperatures increase, the number of emergency room visits and deaths increase,” said Samantha Kingsley, a Brown University public health graduate student and lead author of the study in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives. “But people were going to the hospital for heat-related reasons at temperatures below what we would typically consider extreme.”
For example, researchers found that while the rate of heat-related
emergency visits jumped only 3.3 percent on days with a high of 75 degrees vs.
days with a high of 65, it rocketed up 23.9 percent on days with a high of 85
degrees vs. 75. Overall temperature began to play an independent role in
increasing emergency visits starting at about 75 degrees, according to the
study.
Meanwhile, the state’s death rate was 4 percent higher on a
typical 85-degree day vs. a typical 75-degree day. Like emergency visits,
deaths appear to rise as high temperatures do, even at temperatures that many
people wouldn’t consider extreme.
“People should be aware that heat represents a significant public-health threat,” said Gregory Wellenius, associate professor of epidemiology at Brown University and the study’s senior author. “We do need to take heat seriously as a public-health risk, even if there isn’t a heat warning.”
Notably the strongest association between heat-related emergency
visits and higher temperature wasn’t among senior citizens, but among Rhode Islanders
aged 18-64. Many could-be workers who remain outside on hot days, perhaps when
it isn’t so safe.
“Everybody believes that heat is dangerous but not for them,”
Wellenius said. “One of the messages is that this is really across the age
spectrum. Heat remains one of the leading causes of weather-related deaths.”
The finding that emergency visits and deaths are greater on warmer
days, even if temperatures are only in the 70s or 80s, suggests that distress
from the heat may become even more common as temperatures rise as a result of a
changing climate, according to the study.
To investigate that possibility, the researchers projected how
much greater emergency visits and mortality would be if the current Rhode
Island population were living with the increased temperatures forecast by two
standard climate-change models: one with a 6-degree rise by the end of the
century and the other with a 10-degree rise.
Their estimates use the models’
temperature forecasts for two ranges of years: 2046-2053 and 2092-2099.
They project that if days became 10 degrees hotter by the end of
the century, as in the hotter of the two models, the state’s summertime death
rate would rise by about 1.5 percent — about 80 more deaths each summer — and
the rate of heat-related emergency department visits would increase by about 25
percent, from about 6,000 to about 7,500 each summer.
In both time periods and each scenario of warming temperatures,
deaths and emergency visits among Rhode Islanders would be higher. For example,
even with the 2046-2053 temperatures forecast by the milder of the two models,
the rate of heat-related emergency visits is still estimated to rise by about 5
percent and the rate of deaths rises by about 0.6 percent.
By applying the effects of future temperatures to the current
Rhode Island population, the study doesn’t account for any of the possibly
mitigating or exacerbating factors that could occur in the future. Improvements
in technology or simply better education about of the health effects of heat
could allow Rhode Islanders to better tolerate the future’s higher
temperatures.
Given the already apparent increase in emergency visits and deaths
on warmer days today, Kingsley said, people may want to pay more attention to
the health risks of heat even as this summer runs its course.
“Not even projecting into the future, it’s important for people to
be aware of heat, and not just above 100 degrees,” Kingsley said. “Be prepared
for any outdoor activities: pack water bottles, stay hydrated, get into
air-conditioned environments at some point to cool down.”
