Research on the effects of extreme heat exposure on human health

Abstract

Nowadays, more and more studies indicate that heat exposure negatively affects human health. As climate change and global warming increased, extreme heat exposure became more rigorous and killed mountains of people every year. Extreme heat is not only a threat to physical health but also to mental health. Epidemiological studies have shown that heat waves can increase peoples morbidity and mortality. This literature review will discuss in detail the impact of extreme heat on human health, and what measures governments and individuals can take to respond to or prevent the damage of extreme heat. We used extreme heat and human health as keywords to collect the papers in the Embase database and review all the results. After sorting out all the results, the research focuses on the effect of extreme heat exposure on human physical and mental health. It can be found that extreme heat exposure causes heat-related illnesses (HRI) and aggravates chronic diseases, especially cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. And extreme heat can also lead to Preterm birth (PTB) which threatens the lives of pregnant women and infants. Mental health and related deaths are also affected by extreme heat exposure.