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New research suggests that U.S. climate change, and the unpredictable temperature swings it can bring, may boost death rates in seniors.
"Temperature variability emerges as a key feature in the potential impacts of climate change. The take-home message: Unusual temperature is bad for people's health," said study author Liuhua Shi, a graduate student in the department of environmental health at Harvard's School of Public Health in Boston.
Scientists have long been debating the health effects of climate change, and the general assumption is that it will make people sicker through more extreme heat, more flooding and more polluted air.
Shi and colleagues launched their study in the New England area to better understand how weather affects death rates. "Many studies have reported associations between short-term temperature changes and increased daily deaths," Shi said. "However, there is little evidence to date on the long-term effect of temperature."
The researchers looked at Medicare statistics regarding 2.7 million people over the age of 65 in New England from 2000 to 2008. Of those, Shi said, 30 percent died during the study.
The researchers found death rates rose when the average summer temperature rose significantly, and death rates dropped when the average winter temperature rose significantly.
The researchers believe the increased risk in the summer is due to an increase in the variability of temperatures. According to Shi, "climate change may affect mortality rates by making seasonal weather more unpredictable, creating temperature conditions significantly different to those to which people have become acclimatized."
On the other hand, warmer winter temperatures caused by climate change could actually reduce deaths, the researchers added.
The study appears in the July 13 issue of Nature Climate Change.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by ikanreed on Monday July 20 2015, @01:55PM
What an absolute shit opinion, with shit justification. And I can't even tell what "side" you're arguing.
Come on man, separating statistical noise from observational study is important. We aren't talking about spurious correlations, we're talking about correlations with well-understood causative factors.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 20 2015, @02:28PM
I just checked the paper. Amazing they can publish a paper on the correlation between temperature and mortality without any plots of temperature vs time, mortality vs time, or temperature vs mortality. They have not even tried to find the functional form of this relationship, or anything. It is nothing but seeing that two cyclical phenomena are correlated with each other.
I happen to be very interested in relationships between weather and human mortality/births/migration/etc right now, this paper is not helpful. It is trivial to realize that everything is correlated with everything else when you start looking at that type of data. Instead of the one paper necessary explaining that, we get decades and tens of thousands about these "important" discoveries.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Monday July 20 2015, @02:45PM
The correlation between temperature extremes, temperature swings, and mortality is already well documented and understood.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 20 2015, @03:01PM
Seasonality is a fascinating topic. My specific interest is regarding infectious disease, which is often seasonal. At least in that case, the driving force behind the cycle is not clear. However, writing a paper merely noting the existence of the correlation between temperature and mortality once again is ridiculous.
If you are going to bother collecting the data together, etc you may as well come up with some theory to fit the relationship. I am sure if they did do that it would be way overblown and hyped though. People forget the point is to then compare that explanation to future data.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Monday July 20 2015, @03:02PM
Not that I think you're wrong, but this would a great time to demonstrate this documentation. I don't actually know what kind of medical literature to look for.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 20 2015, @03:14PM
Just look up seasonal mortality, you will find tons of papers. However, it is better to get the data and plot it for yourself. There are many interesting patterns (age, birth cohort effects, etc):
http://www.nber.org/data/vital-statistics-mortality-data-multiple-cause-of-death.html [nber.org]
(Score: 3, Informative) by sjames on Monday July 20 2015, @07:58PM
Start here [wikipedia.org]. Then google "Heat related deaths U.S."
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Monday July 20 2015, @08:11PM
Ouch. I was hoping for a bit more than "here's an example and google it".
(Score: 2) by sjames on Monday July 20 2015, @08:24PM
I don't really have time to cut/paste a thousand google hits.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Monday July 20 2015, @08:38PM
And it wouldn't. I'm sorry, but this isn't the kind of record I was hoping for. I'm looking for rigorous science and not news articles. It's okay. I'm not trying to extract what you don't have, nor am I trying to defend the opposite point from what you're presenting.
(Score: 1) by Roger Murdock on Monday July 20 2015, @11:18PM
That's what Shi said!