ADAPTE

Adaptation to the health risks from temperature and air pollution

These maps show from left to right the geographic distribution of human mortality rates attributable to cardiovascular and respiratory disease, and the distribution of vulnerable groups as measured by the multidimensional vulnerability index (MVI) in the three cities. Data in the maps are divided into five equal groups. The first quintile contains the lowest 20% of values, while the fifth quintile has the highest 20%.

While risks from hazards, such as floods and fires, risks are largely determined by the socioeconomic and legal status of urban households, hazards such as air pollution can create risk across socioeconomic lines. To test this hypothesis we explored health risks related to air pollution and temperature extremes in three Latin American cities: Bogota, Colombia, Mexico City, Mexico, and Santiago, Chile.

We gathered, validated, and analyzed temperature, air pollution, mortality and socioeconomic vulnerability data from the three study cities. Our results show the association between air pollution levels and socioeconomic vulnerabilities did not always correlate within the study cities. Furthermore, the spatial differences in socioeconomic vulnerabilities within cities do not necessarily correspond with the spatial distribution of health impacts.

This research improves our understanding of the multifaceted nature of health risks and vulnerabilities associated with global environmental change. is the findings suggest that health risks from atmospheric conditions and pollutants exist without boundaries or social distinctions, even exhibiting characteristics of a boomerang effect (i.e., affecting rich and poor alike) on a smaller scale such as areas within urban regions.

We used human mortality, a severe impact, to measure health risks from air pollution and extreme temperatures. Better quality public health data (e.g., morbidity, hospital visits) are needed for future research to advance our understanding of the nature of health risks related to climate hazards.

Thematic publications

Abrutzky, R., Ibarra, S., Matus, P., Romero-Lankao P., Pereyra, V., Dawidowski, L. (2013) "Atmospheric pollution and mortality. A comparative study between two Latin American cities: Buenos Aires (Argentina) and Santiago (Chile)", Int. J. Environment and Health,  6(4), , 363 - 380

Romero Lankao, P., Borbor-Cordova,M., Abrutsky, R., Günther,G., Behrentz, E. 2013: ADAPTE: a tale of four teams seeking to do integrated research, Environmental Science and Policy (Available on line).