The Effect of Apparent Temperature on All-Cause Mortality in England, UK

Abstract

This work explores the impact of thermal stress on natural-cause mortality in the nine Office of National Statistics regions of England using the thermal index Apparent Temperature as the exposure indicator. A standard time-series Poisson regression analysis for over-dispersed data was used, along with distributed lag non-linear models, setting a lag period of 21 days to account for the delayed effects of temperature. Regional differences in the exposure–response relationships were revealed. On the whole, the results demonstrated that the population in England is more vulnerable to cold effects and highlighted the dominant health impact of moderately low temperatures.

Keywords

• thermal stress
• apparent temperature
• mortality
• attributable risk