Burden of cause-specific mortality attributable to heat and cold: A multicity time-series study in Jiangsu Province, China

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Previous epidemiological studies primarily examined the temperature-related mortality burden of all-cause or cardiovascular diseases (CVD) and respiratory diseases. However, evidence on the heat- and cold-attributable mortality burden from other specific causes is limited. This paper aimed to systematically examine the association of heat and cold with a comprehensive spectrum of plausible temperature-related diseases, and to estimate the mortality burdens attributable to heat and cold. In the time-series study of 11 cities in Jiangsu, China, distributed lag non-linear models were applied to estimate city-specific temperature-mortality associations, and then meta-analysis was conducted to pool the estimates. A total of 1,368,648 cases of death were included in this study. Both extreme heat and cold were associated with increased mortality risks from all-cause, CVD, respiratory diseases, nervous diseases, and external causes. Short-term exposures to heat and cold were associated with excess burden of mortality for several specific diseases, accounting for 16.38% (95% eCI, 7.27–22.31%) for myocardial infarction (MI), 12.41% (95% eCI, 8.81–15.07%) for stroke, 27.97% (95% eCI, 18.42–33.35%) for hypertensive heart disease, 25.18% (95% eCI, 18.42–29.63%) for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and 28.46% (95% eCI: 4.93–33.57%) for Alzheimer’s and dementia. Diabetes was only associated with extreme heat, with 4.61% (95% eCI, 0.13–7.13%) of diabetes mortality attributable to heat. In total, 11.98% (95% eCI, 10.46–13.08%) of mortality was attributable to heat and cold, with 3.49% (95% eCI, 2.87–4.00%) attributable to heat and 8.48% (95% eCI, 7.31–9.49%) attributable to cold, and about 64% of this overall temperature-related mortality burden was found in 6 aforementioned specific causes and about 10% of mortality burden in external causes. Extreme heat and/or cold are associated with increased risks of mortality from a wide range of causes, including previously identified causes in cardiorespiratory diseases and under-studied causes such as diabetes and Alzheimer’s and dementia. Future research is needed to confirm the substantial mortality burden of heat and cold.