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Human mortality seasonality in Castile-León, Spain, between 1980 and 1998: the influence of temperature, pressure and humidity

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Abstract

This study was carried out in the region of Castile and Leon, Spain, from 1980 to 1998 and analyzes the relationship between the number of monthly deaths caused by cardiovascular, respiratory and digestive diseases and three meteorological variables: temperature, pressure and humidity. One of the innovations in this study is the application of principal component analysis in a way that differs from its usual application: one single series representing the whole region was constructed for each meteorological variable from the series of eight weather stations. Annual and seasonal mortality trends were also studied. Cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of death in Castile and Leon. The mortality related to cardiovascular, respiratory and digestive systems shows a statistically significant rising trend across the study period (an annual increase of 6, 16 and 4‰, respectively). The pressure at which mortality is lowest is approximately the same for all causes of death (about 915 hPa), but temperature values vary greatly (16.8–19.7°C for the mean, 10.9–18.1°C for the minimum, and 24.1–27.2°C for the maximum temperature). The most comfortable temperatures for patients with cardiovascular diseases (16.8°C) are apparently lower than those for patients with respiratory diseases (18.1°C), which are, in turn, lower than in the case of diseases of the digestive system (19.7°C). Finally, the optimal humidity for patients with respiratory diseases is the lowest (24%) among the diseases, and the highest (51%) corresponds to diseases of the digestive system, while the optimal relative humidity for the cardiovascular system is 45%.

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Notes

  1. Green GH (1966) The effect of indoor relative humidity on absenteeism and colds in school. University of Saskatchewan. Unpublished

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Dr. Sara del Río for her help with the figures and Dr. Noelia Ramón for the translation into English. We are also grateful to the Instituto Nacional de Meteorología (National Institute of Meteorology) and the Instituto Nacional de Estadística (National Institute of Statistics) for the data provided. Suggestions made by two anonymous reviewers proved very useful. This study was funded by project LE 67/04 awarded by the Regional Government of Castile-León.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Física, Facultad de CC Biológicas y Ambientales, Universidad de León, 24071, León, Spain

    María Fernández-Raga & Roberto Fraile

  2. Departamento de Física de la Atmósfera, Universidad de Salamanca, 37071, Salamanca, Spain

    Clemente Tomás

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  1. María Fernández-Raga
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  2. Clemente Tomás
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  3. Roberto Fraile
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Correspondence to Roberto Fraile.

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Fernández-Raga, M., Tomás, C. & Fraile, R. Human mortality seasonality in Castile-León, Spain, between 1980 and 1998: the influence of temperature, pressure and humidity. Int J Biometeorol 54, 379–392 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00484-009-0289-1

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