Analysis of relation between temperature and mortality in three cities in China by using lag model : A comparison of Harbin, Nanjing and Guangzhou

Abstract

Purpose : Concerning the effect of high temperature, knowledge is limited in developing countries, because public health infrastructure is not yet established in these countries including those in Asia in particular. In this study, we analyzed the effect of extreme temperature in three cities in China.
Methods : We conducted the study in three cities in China using distributed lag nonlinear models (dlnm). The “dlnm” is a flexible package to evaluate a non-linear effect itself and its lag simultaneously. We obtained a data from database made by the Ministry of Health in China for daily number of deaths from 1998 to 2002.
Results : Regarding high temperature, mortality has increased acutely and the effect did not last long. Regarding cold temperature, the mortality has tendency to stay to be more than 1.0 for more than 10 days in Guangzhou and in Nanjing. The RR for Nanjing at lag=0, and temperature=0 showed the different pattern from previous research.
Conclusion : The result showed that heat effect observed in the three Chinese cities and the cold effect in Guangzhou and Harbin were consistent with the previous researches. The cold effect of Nanjin was not consistent in the point of showing direct impact in lag0, 0°C.