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Influence of temperature on mortality in the French overseas regions: a pledge for adaptation to heat in tropical marine climates

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Abstract

Context

Tropical areas and small islands are identified as highly vulnerable to climate change, and already experiencing shifts in their temperature distribution. However, the knowledge on the health impacts of temperatures under tropical marine climate is limited.

We explored the influence of temperature on mortality in four French overseas regions located in French Guiana, French West Indies, and in the Indian Ocean, between 2000 and 2015.

Method

Distributed lag non-linear generalized models linking temperature and mortality were developed in each area, and relative risks were combined through a meta-analysis. Models were used to estimate the fraction of mortality attributable to non-optimal temperatures. The role of humidity was also investigated.

Results

An increased risk of mortality was observed when the temperature deviated from median. Results were not modified when introducing humidity. Between 2000 and 2015, 979 deaths [confidence interval (CI) 95% 531:1359] were attributable to temperatures higher than the 90th percentile of the temperature distribution, and 442 [CI 95% 178:667] to temperature lower than the 10th percentile.

Discussion

Heat already has a large impact on mortality in the French overseas regions. Results suggest that adaptation to heat is relevant under tropical marine climate.

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Data availability

Upon request to the author.

Code availability

Upon request to the author.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank Grégory Fifre, from Météo-France, for his support in the identification of the weather station and databases.

Funding

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Sante Publique France, Saint-Maurice, France

    Mathilde Pascal, Vérène Wagner, Magali Corso, Robin Lagarrigue, Jean-Louis Solet, Elise Daudens, Lydéric Aubert & Cyril Rousseau

Authors
  1. Mathilde Pascal
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  2. Vérène Wagner
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  3. Magali Corso
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  4. Robin Lagarrigue
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  5. Jean-Louis Solet
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  6. Elise Daudens
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  7. Lydéric Aubert
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  8. Cyril Rousseau
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Contributions

MP: conceptualization, writing the first draft, VW: conceptualization, statistical analysis, writing—review and editing. MC and RL: data curation, writing—review, and editing, JLS, ED, LA, and CR: selection of the study area, interpretation, writing—review, and editing. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mathilde Pascal.

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Competing interests

All authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Supplementary Information

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484_2022_2257_MOESM1_ESM.docx

Additional file 1: Figure S1. Temperature-mortality associations for the four study areas. Solid vertical lines represent the minimum mortality temperatures and dashed vertical lines their 95% confidence intervals. Figure S2. Relative risks (dashed–confidence interval) by lag for selected temperature percentiles–meta-analysis

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Pascal, M., Wagner, V., Corso, M. et al. Influence of temperature on mortality in the French overseas regions: a pledge for adaptation to heat in tropical marine climates. Int J Biometeorol 66, 1057–1065 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00484-022-02257-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00484-022-02257-7

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