Modeling the relationship between temperature and mortality : a case study in SENEGAL

Abstract

In this paper, we have used the Generalized Additive Model (GAM) to investigate the relationships between high temperature and daily number of deaths in Niakhar, a Sehalian-Sudanese climate in central Senegal. Daily data on number of deaths and meteorological variables over the period of 1983-2013 were considered. Descriptive statistics show that, over the study period, the total of non-accidental deaths were 12,798, among which we notice that 490 persons (3.83%) died of cardiovascular disease, 1,015 persons (7.93%) died of respiratory disease, 3,970 persons (31.02%) died of certain infectious and parasitic diseases, and 224 persons (1.75%) died of nervous system disease From the GAM model, we observe that high temperature significantly increased the relative risk (RR)Indeed, relative risk of deaths due to cardiovascular disease is 1.034 with a 95% confidence intervals (CI) 1.025 to 1.044, while it is 1.030 with a 95% CI 1.026 to 1.033 for certain infectious and parasitic disease. For respiratory disease, the RR is 1.012 with a 95% CI 1.007 to 1.017, and for nervous system disease, the relative risk is 1.034 with 95% CI 1.026 to 1.043.