Temperature changes ‘affect poor more than rich’

People who live in poorer cities have a higher risk of being hospitalised if temperatures change quickly through the course of a day or over a short period, according to a study undertaken in Brazil.

While it was known that temperature variations increased the risk of disease and mortality for people with conditions such as diabetes or asthma, researchers wanted to understand the impact of socioeconomic indicators, such as monthly household income.

Paulo Saldiva是圣保罗大学医学院的高级教授，研究的合着者published在The Lancet Planetary Health,告诉SciDev.Net: “These disparities are for everything you can think of, from COVID-19 to cardiac problems.”

通过分析从2000年1月至2015年12月的1,814个巴西城市中约1.48亿住院的数据，研究人员发现，相对于前一天，在给定的一天中，摄氏摄氏度增加了，平均住院风险增加了0.52％。

虽然数字看起来似乎很少，但实际风险可能会更高，因为“温度可变性每天可能会变化几个度”。不参加研究。

“These disparities are for everything you can think of, from Covid-19 to cardiac problems.”

Paulo Saldiva, University of São Paulo

Researchers found disparities between municipalities. People aged under 19 or over 60 years old, and those with infectious, respiratory and endocrine diseases from cities of lower income levels were at greater risk of hospitalisation due to temperature changes than those from affluent cities.

The analysis was based on city-level socioeconomic statistics from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, hospitalisation data from the Hospital Information System of the Brazilian Unified Health System, and daily weather reports from a peer-reviewed Brazilian meteorological dataset.

The team found that people with endocrine diseases, such as diabetes, in lower-income cities were almost four times more likely to be hospitalised than those with a similar condition living in high-income cities.

贫困城市中传染病的人由于温度的突然变化而被住院的可能性几乎是富裕城市的同行的三倍，这对于呼吸道疾病来说是类似的情况。

糖尿病和呼吸道疾病不是由温度变异性引起的，而是受其不利影响。Saldiva解释说，我们的血管在寒冷或寒冷时会膨胀的能力是防止温度变化的重要保障。

“由于不受控制的高血压或糖尿病，人们可以患动脉粥样硬化，这使血管僵硬。这使他们很难应付温度变化，因为他们的热调节功能不再那么好，”他补充说。

阿姆斯特朗告诉SciDev.Net：“这些结果非常惊人，因为这里的社会经济地位与脆弱性之间的关联在这里变得非常清晰。”

热浪对健康有害影响，最贫穷的是最脆弱的。信用：劳尔·桑塔纳（RaúlSantana）/fiocruz(Creative Commons)

People from lower-income cities often lack good housing structure and air conditioning, “and many people in rural areas work outdoors, being directly exposed to the heat and daily temperature variations,” said Sonja Ayeb-Karlsson, a professor at the United Nations University’s Institute for Environment and Human Security, who did not participate in the study.

“Additionally, poorer diets and financial stress add to the mental impact that can make people living in poorer regions even more vulnerable,” she added.

Saldiva believes this vulnerability may be true in other parts of the world. “Brazil can be, unfortunately, a good laboratory for this sort of study: the country is unequal, and we have climate variability besides good health data,” he said.

Armstrong agrees, but urges caution: “Extrapolation is always risky because there are just too many features to it we must take into account. It makes sense to extrapolate these results for Latin America, for example, but maybe not for the whole world.”

Massive migration and climate change could wreak evolutionary havoc for humans, Saldiva warns.

“在世界各地，对气候的血管反应都是不同的，每个人花了千年的时间才能发展出适应性的优势。与我们不同的细菌在几个小时内进化。随着气候变化，我们将进入进化不匹配。”他说。

This article was produced by SciDev.Net’s Latin America & Caribbean desk and edited for clarity.

这项研究得到了scidev.net供体Fapesp的支持。