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A global comprehensive analysis of ambient low temperature and non-communicable diseases burden during 1990–2019

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Abstract

Climate change and health are inextricably linked, especially the role of ambient temperature. This study aimed to analyze the non-communicable disease (NCD) burden attributable to low temperature globally, regionally, and temporally using data from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study 2019. Globally, in 2019, low temperature was responsible for 5.42% DALY and 7.18% death of NCDs, representing the age-standardized disability-adjusted life years (DALY) and death rates (per 100,000 population) of 359.6 (95% uncertainty intervals (UI): 306.09, 416.88) and 21.36 (95% UI:18.26, 24.74). Ischemic heart disease was the first leading cause of DALY and death resulting from low temperature, followed by stroke. However, age-standardized DALY and death rates attributable to low temperature have exhibited wide variability across regions, with the highest in Central Asia and Eastern Europe and the lowest in Caribbean and Western sub-Saharan Africa. During the study period (1990–2019), there has been a significant decrease in the burden of NCDs attributable to low temperature, but progress has been uneven across countries, whereas nations exhibiting high sociodemographic index (SDI) declined more significantly compared with low SDI nations. Notably, three nations, including Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Lesotho, had the maximum NCDs burden attributed to low temperature and displayed an upward trend. In conclusion, ambient low temperature contributes to substantial NCD burden with notable geographical variations.

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Data availability

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Abbreviations

NCDs:

Non-communicable diseases

GBD:

Global Burden of Disease Study

DALY:

Disability-adjusted life year

SDI:

Sociodemographic index

COPD:

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

CKD:

Chronic kidney diseases

UI:

Uncertainty interval

CI:

Confident intervals

AAPC:

Average annual percent change

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Acknowledgements

We highly appreciate the work by the GBD 2019 collaborators.

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant number: 81773518).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Epidemiology and Health Statistics, School of Public Health, Anhui Medical University, 81 Meishan Road, Hefei, 230032, Anhui, China

    Jian Song, Wei Qin, Rubing Pan, Weizhuo Yi, Shasha Song, Jian Cheng & Hong Su

  2. Inflammation and Immune Mediated Diseases Laboratory of Anhui Province, Hefei, China

    Jian Song, Rubing Pan, Weizhuo Yi, Shasha Song, Jian Cheng & Hong Su

  3. Lu’an Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Lu’an, 237000, Anhui, China

    Wei Qin

Authors
  1. Jian Song
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  2. Wei Qin
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  3. Rubing Pan
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  4. Weizhuo Yi
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  5. Shasha Song
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  6. Jian Cheng
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  7. Hong Su
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Contributions

Conceptualization: Jian Song, Jian Cheng; data curation: Jian Song, Wei Qin, Rubing Pan, Weizhuo Yi; formal analysis: Jian Song, Wei Qin; methodology: Jian Song, Wei Qin, Jian Cheng, Hong Su; Software: Jian Song, Rubing Pan, Wei Qin; supervision: Jian Song, Shasha Song, Jian Cheng, Hong Su; validation: Jian Song, Wei Qin, Shasha Song; visualization: Jian Song, Weizhuo Yi; writing — original draft: Jian Song; writing — review and editing: Jian Song, Jian Cheng, Hong Su.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Hong Su.

Ethics declarations

Ethics approval

This study was approved by the Ethical Committee of Anhui Medical University (Hefei, Anhui, China).

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Not applicable (this study does not contain any individual person’s data in any form).

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The authors declare that they agree with the publication of this paper in this journal.

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

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Responsible Editor: Lotfi Aleya

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Song, J., Qin, W., Pan, R. et al. A global comprehensive analysis of ambient low temperature and non-communicable diseases burden during 1990–2019. Environ Sci Pollut Res 29, 66136–66147 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-20442-4

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