TY - JOUR
T1 - Heat health risk assessment analysing heatstroke patients in Fukuoka City, Japan
AU - Toosty, Nishat Tasnim
AU - Hagishima, Aya
AU - Tanaka, Ken Ichi
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Toosty et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
PY - 2021/6
Y1 - 2021/6
N2 - Background Climate change, as a defining issue of the current time, is causing severe heat-related illness in the context of extremely hot weather conditions. In Japan, the remarkable temperature increase in summer caused by an urban heat island and climate change has become a threat to public health in recent years. Methods This study aimed to determine the potential risk factors for heatstroke by analysing data extracted from the records of emergency transport to the hospital due to heatstroke in Fukuoka City, Japan. In this regard, a negative binomial regression model was used to account for overdispersion in the data. Age-structure analyses of heatstroke patients were also embodied to identify the sub-population of Fukuoka City with the highest susceptibility. Results The daily maximum temperature and wet-bulb globe temperature (WBGT), along with differences in both the mean temperature and time-weighted temperature from those of the consecutive past days were detected as significant risk factors for heatstroke. Results indicated that there was a positive association between the resulting risk factors and the probability of heatstroke occurrence. The elderly of Fukuoka City aged 70 years or older were found to be the most vulnerable to heatstroke. Most of the aforementioned risk factors also encountered significant and positive associations with the risk of heatstroke occurrence for the group with highest susceptibility. Conclusion These results can provide insights for health professionals and stakeholders in designing their strategies to reduce heatstroke patients and to secure the emergency transport systems in summer.
AB - Background Climate change, as a defining issue of the current time, is causing severe heat-related illness in the context of extremely hot weather conditions. In Japan, the remarkable temperature increase in summer caused by an urban heat island and climate change has become a threat to public health in recent years. Methods This study aimed to determine the potential risk factors for heatstroke by analysing data extracted from the records of emergency transport to the hospital due to heatstroke in Fukuoka City, Japan. In this regard, a negative binomial regression model was used to account for overdispersion in the data. Age-structure analyses of heatstroke patients were also embodied to identify the sub-population of Fukuoka City with the highest susceptibility. Results The daily maximum temperature and wet-bulb globe temperature (WBGT), along with differences in both the mean temperature and time-weighted temperature from those of the consecutive past days were detected as significant risk factors for heatstroke. Results indicated that there was a positive association between the resulting risk factors and the probability of heatstroke occurrence. The elderly of Fukuoka City aged 70 years or older were found to be the most vulnerable to heatstroke. Most of the aforementioned risk factors also encountered significant and positive associations with the risk of heatstroke occurrence for the group with highest susceptibility. Conclusion These results can provide insights for health professionals and stakeholders in designing their strategies to reduce heatstroke patients and to secure the emergency transport systems in summer.
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U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0253011
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0253011
M3 - Article
C2 - 34153053
AN - SCOPUS:85108342037
VL - 16
JO - PLoS One
JF - PLoS One
SN - 1932-6203
IS - 6 June
M1 - e0253011
ER -