Extreme Weather Conditions and Cardiovascular Hospitalizations in Southern Brazil

Abstract

This research concerns the identification of a pattern between the occurrence of extreme weather conditions, such as cold waves and heat waves, and hospitalization for cardiovascular diseases (CVDs), in the University Hospital of Santa Maria (HUSM) in southern Brazil between 2012 and 2017. The research employed the field experiment method to measure the biometeorological parameters associated with hospital admissions in different seasons, such as during extreme weather conditions such as a cold wave (CW) or a heat wave (HW), using five thermal comfort indices: physiologically equivalent temperature (PET), new standard effective temperature (SET), predicted mean vote (PMV), effective temperatures (ET), and effective temperature with wind (ETW). The hospitalizations were recorded as 0.775 and 0.726 admissions per day for the winter and entire study periods, respectively. The records for extreme events showed higher admission rates than those on average days. The results also suggest that emergency hospitalizations for heart diseases during extreme weather events occurred predominantly on days with thermal discomfort. Furthermore, there was a particularly high risk of hospitalization for up to seven days after the end of the CW. Further analyses showed that cardiovascular hospitalizations were higher in winter than in summer, suggesting that CWs are more life threatening in wintertime.

Drought–heatwave nexus in Brazil and related impacts on health and fires: A comprehensive review

“…The understanding of the potential impacts of CDHW events on public health in Brazil is still far from satisfactory, despite the widespread efforts to quantify the impacts of droughts 34,107,108,112 and HWs 21,119,[123][124][125][126][127][128][129][130][131][132][133] from the perspective of a single climate extreme.…”

“…[116][117][118][119][120][121][122] By contrast, most of the HW-related studies in Brazil mainly focus on public health impacts. 21,119,[123][124][125][126][127][128][129][130][131][132][133] Besides health-related studies in the country, a few studies show HW impacts on agriculture, 134 food production, 135 and fires. 33 The overwhelming majority of health-related assessments address HWs and excess deaths, although the results are mainly limited to the southeastern Brazilian states of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.…”

“…Compared to drought events, relatively few studies in Brazil have focused on HW modeling and interpretation, with the majority of these published since 2011 116–122 . By contrast, most of the HW‐related studies in Brazil mainly focus on public health impacts 21,119,123–133 . Besides health‐related studies in the country, a few studies show HW impacts on agriculture, 134 food production, 135 and fires 33 .…”

A Systematic Review on Human Thermal Comfort and Methodologies for Evaluating Urban Morphology in Outdoor Spaces

“…According to urban morphology [6][7][8], people who move along, around, and outside the urban areas of a city are increasingly exposed to a variety of conditions that vary in air temperature, humidity, wind, and sunshine (or lack thereof). Such morphological differences result in different microclimates, which may make the environment (un)comfortable for the population that transits through it [2,9], and it is well known that extreme environmental variables can cause cardiovascular diseases, as previously demonstrated in research [10][11][12][13][14], in addition to interfering with basic day-to-day external activities [10,13,15,16].…”

Investigating the Relationship between Climate and Hospital Admissions for Respiratory Diseases before and during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Brazil

“…Using the time-series approach, a number of studies conducted in Brazil have looked into the relationship between climate and health data available in hospitals or in online platforms that provide data from the Brazilian health care system (relevant health-related data can be retrieved, e.g., from the Brazilian Unified Health System database-DATASUS). Costa et al [13] tried to identify patterns of relationship between extreme weather conditions and hospitalization entries for cardiovascular diseases, obtained from the statistics sector at the University Hospital of Santa Maria in southern Brazil, using a time-series between 2012 and 2017. Souza and colleagues evaluated asthma-related hospitalization against climatic variables, pollutants and aerosols over time in Campo Grande, Mato Grosso do Sul [14].…”