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Greenness and excess deaths from heat in 323 Latin American cities: Do associations vary according to climate zone or green space configuration?

Environment International, ISSN: 0160-4120, Vol: 180, Page: 108230
2023
  • 6
    Citations
  • 0
    Usage
  • 35
    Captures
  • 1
    Mentions
  • 0
    Social Media
Metric Options:   Counts1 Year3 Year

Metrics Details

  • Citations
    6
  • Captures
    35
  • Mentions
    1
    • News Mentions
      1
      • 1

Most Recent News

University of California Researchers Add New Findings in the Area of Environment (Greenness and excess deaths from heat in 323 Latin American cities: Do associations vary according to climate zone or green space configuration?)

2023 OCT 12 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Ecology Daily News -- Research findings on environment are discussed in a new

Article Description

Green vegetation may protect against heat-related death by improving thermal comfort. Few studies have investigated associations of green vegetation with heat-related mortality in Latin America or whether associations are modified by the spatial configuration of green vegetation. We used data from 323 Latin American cities and meta-regression models to estimate associations between city-level greenness, quantified using population-weighted normalized difference vegetation index values and modeled as three-level categorical terms, and excess deaths from heat (heat excess death fractions [heat EDFs]). Models were adjusted for city-level fine particulate matter concentration (PM 2.5 ), social environment, and country group. In addition to estimating overall associations, we derived estimates of association stratified by green space clustering by including an interaction term between a green space clustering measure (dichotomized at the median of the distribution) and the three-level greenness variable. We stratified analyses by climate zone (arid vs. temperate and tropical combined). Among the 79 arid climate zone cities, those with moderate and high greenness levels had modestly lower heat EDFs compared to cities with the lowest greenness, although protective associations were more substantial in cities with moderate versus high greenness levels and confidence intervals (CI) crossed the null (Beta: −0.41, 95% CI: −1.06, 0.25; Beta −0.23, 95% CI: −0.95, 0.49, respectively). In 244 non-arid climate zone cities, associations were approximately null. We did not observe evidence of effect modification by green space clustering. Our results suggest that greenness may offer modest protection against heat-related mortality in arid climate zone Latin American cities.

Bibliographic Details

Schinasi, Leah H; Bakhtsiyarava, Maryia; Sanchez, Brisa N; Kephart, Josiah L; Ju, Yang; Arunachalam, Sarav; Gouveia, Nelson; Teixeira Caiaffa, Waleska; O'Neill, Marie S; Dronova, Iryna; Diez Roux, Ana V; Rodriguez, Daniel A

Elsevier BV

Environmental Science

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