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Systematic identification of heat events associated with emergency admissions to enhance the heat-health action plan in a subtropical city: a data-driven approach

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Abstract

According to the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), a heat-health action plan should address various impacts of hazards at different levels, including an early warning system to monitor risks and behaviour enhancement to increase disaster preparedness. It is necessary to comply with guidelines regarding heat duration/intensity. In this study, we developed a data-driven approach to rapidly and systematically estimate the impacts of various heat events on emergency admissions among the adult population (n = 7,086,966) in Hong Kong in order to enhance the heat-health action plan. Immediate, short-term, and long-term impacts determined by 1-day, 4-day, and 8-day windows were estimated to identify specific heat events suitable for early warnings. In addition, underestimated risk, determined by a continuous increase in heat risk after days without significant emergency admissions, was estimated to evaluate potential maladaptive behaviours among a specific subpopulation. Based on age- and gender-specific analyses, 1D, 1D1N, and 2D2N were observed to have a stronger immediate impact on emergency admissions. 1D1N and 2D2N also showed notable short-term and long-term impacts. Based on heat vulnerability factors (age and gender), 2D2N was a higher-priority extreme heat event for early warning measures than 1D1N. Furthermore, men aged 19 to 64 had the highest underestimated risk. Specifically, they had IRR values of 1.113 [1.087, 1.140], 1.061 [1.035, 1.087], and 1.069 [1.043, 1.095] during lag days 3–5 of 3D2N, respectively, possibly due to a lack of adaptive behaviour. By adopting our approach, the duration of heat events with significant health impacts can be identified in order to further enhance relevant heat stress information. This framework can be applied to other cities with a similar background for rapid assessment.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the partial support from Research Impact Fund 2018−19, Hong Kong Research Grants Council (Ref No: R4046-18, Title: Increasing the Resilience to the Health Impacts of Extreme Weather on Older People under Future Climate Change)  and Guangdong Natural Science Fund (Project code: 2021A1515012571).

Funding

The study was partially supported by the Vice-Chancellor’s Discretionary Fund of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. It was also partially supported by General Research Fund Project Grant 2017/18 (Project No. RGC-GRF 14611517, “Climatic-responsive planning and action for mitigating heat-related health risk at community level in high density cities– A Case of Hong Kong”), Research Impact Fund 2018/19 (Project No. R4046-18, “Increasing the resilience to the health impacts of extreme weather on elderly people under future climate change”) of the Hong Kong Research Grants Council, and Guangdong Natural Science Fund (Project code: 2021A1515012571)..

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anaesthesiology, School of Clinical Medicine, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong

    Hung Chak Ho

  2. Department of Urban Planning and Design, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong

    Hung Chak Ho

  3. Department of Civil, Environmental and Natural Resources Engineering, Luleå University of Technology, Luleå, Sweden

    Kevin Lau

  4. Division of Landscape Architecture, Faculty of Architecture, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong

    Chao Ren

  5. Faculty of Health Sciences, Ontario Tech University, Oshawa, Canada

    Dan Wang

  6. Institute for Disability and Rehabilitation Research, Oshawa, Canada

    Dan Wang

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  1. Hung Chak Ho
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  2. Kevin Lau
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  4. Dan Wang
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Contributions

HCH developed the contextual design, conducted the data analysis, and wrote the draft of manuscript. KL provided insights on urban climate. DW provided insights on public health. CR provided financial support. All authors approved the final version of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Hung Chak Ho or Kevin Lau.

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Ho, H.C., Lau, K., Ren, C. et al. Systematic identification of heat events associated with emergency admissions to enhance the heat-health action plan in a subtropical city: a data-driven approach. Environ Sci Pollut Res 29, 89273–89282 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-21963-8

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