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Abstract
Although people will most likely adjust to warmer temperatures, it is still difficult to assess what this adaptation will look like. This scenario-based integrated health impacts assessment explores baseline (1981–2010) and future (2050) population attributable fractions (PAF) of mortality due to heat (PAFheat) and cold (PAFcold), by combining observed temperature–mortality relationships with the Dutch KNMI’14 climate scenarios and three adaptation scenarios. The 2050 model results without adaptation reveal a decrease in PAFcold (8.90% at baseline; 6.56%–7.85% in 2050) that outweighs the increase in PAFheat (1.15% at baseline; 1.66%–2.52% in 2050). When the 2050 model runs applying the different adaptation scenarios are considered as well, however, the PAFheat ranges between 0.94% and 2.52% and the PAFcold between 6.56% and 9.85%. Hence, PAFheat and PAFcold can decrease as well as increase in view of climate change (depending on the adaptation scenario). The associated annual mortality burdens in 2050—accounting for both the increasing temperatures and mortality trend—show that heat-related deaths will range between 1879 and 5061 (1511 at baseline) and cold-related deaths between 13,149 and 19,753 (11,727 at baseline). Our results clearly illustrate that model outcomes are not only highly dependent on climate scenarios, but also on adaptation assumptions. Hence, a better understanding of (the impact of various) plausible adaptation scenarios is required to advance future integrated health impact assessments.
Highlights
Managing the health effects of temperature in response to climate change is a global public health challenge
The PAF-based model underlying this study is based on observed exposure–response functions of temperature and mortality that are applied to a baseline period (1981–2010) and the KNMI’14 scenarios climate scenarios (2050) in order to estimate current and future population attributable fractions of mortality due to exposure to heat and cold
Given the uncertainties involved in estimating future heat- and cold-related mortality in view of a changing climate and subsequent adaptation, our analysis does not pretend to yield precise results or definitive conclusions about the temperature-related mortality effects of climate change in the Netherlands
Summary
Managing the health effects of temperature in response to climate change is a global public health challenge. The expected increase in global mean surface temperature ranges between 0.3 and 4.8 °C by 2100 (relative to 1986–2005) [1] This prospect of further global warming is accompanied by increasing concerns about its health implications, including direct impacts such as heat stress and flooding, indirect impacts mediated through natural systems such as infectious diseases and air quality (including aeroallergens such as pollen), and impacts heavily mediated by human systems such as food security [2,3,4,5,6]. This growing awareness of climate change health impacts was recently highlighted by the publication of the reports of the Lancet Commission on Health and Climate Change [7] and the Rockefeller Foundation–Lancet Commission on Planetary Health [8].
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