IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v50y2000i3p419-427.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The influence of weather on human mortality in Hong Kong

Author

Listed:
  • Yan, Yuk Yee

Abstract

This study is the first attempt to investigate mortality seasonality and weather-mortality relationships in Hong Kong from 1980 to 1994. Monthly mortality data from all causes of death, neoplasm, circulatory and respiratory diseases were obtained from the Census and Statistics Department and the weather data were obtained from the Hong Kong Observatory. Regression analyses and ANOVA were employed. Significant winter peaks in sex specific and total deaths from all causes, circulatory and respiratory diseases were ascertained. Cancer mortality, however, was not seasonal. Mortality seasonality only existed in age groups 45-64 and >=65. For the impact of weather on mortality, no significant relationship between weather variables and cancer mortality was observed. A significant negative association between minimum temperature and a positive relationship between cloud and deaths were found. This suggests that colder and cloudy conditions may heighten mortality. Wind was discovered to have a negative association with mortality. This finding revealed that the stressful effect of wind on mortality was negligible. There was no apparent sex difference. Deaths from the younger age groups (0-24 yr old) were not weather related. Weak weather connection with mortality for age group 25-44 was discovered, with Adj r2 values ranging from 0.05 to 0.07. The elderly (age >=65) were more vulnerable to weather stress and strong weather-mortality relationship was uncovered, with Adj r2 values from 0.36 to 0.66. These results are important information for formulating public health policies.

Suggested Citation

  • Yan, Yuk Yee, 2000. "The influence of weather on human mortality in Hong Kong," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 419-427, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:50:y:2000:i:3:p:419-427
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277-9536(99)00301-9
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Deniz Gerçek & İsmail Talih Güven, 2023. "Assessment of Mutual Variation of Near-Surface Air Temperature, Land Surface Temperature and Driving Urban Parameters at Urban Microscale," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(22), pages 1-22, November.
    2. Hung Chak Ho & Anders Knudby & Wei Huang, 2015. "A Spatial Framework to Map Heat Health Risks at Multiple Scales," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 12(12), pages 1-14, December.
    3. Skinner, Mark W. & Yantzi, Nicole M. & Rosenberg, Mark W., 2009. "Neither rain nor hail nor sleet nor snow: Provider perspectives on the challenges of weather for home and community care," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 68(4), pages 682-688, February.
    4. Pui Hing Chau & Moses Wong & Jean Woo, 2014. "Ischemic Heart Disease Hospitalization among Older People in a Subtropical City — Hong Kong: Does Winter Have a Greater Impact than Summer?," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 11(4), pages 1-14, April.
    5. Katja Hanewald, 2008. "Beyond the business cycle - factors driving aggregate mortality rates," SFB 649 Discussion Papers SFB649DP2008-031, Sonderforschungsbereich 649, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany.
    6. Pui Hing Chau & Paul Siu Fai Yip & Eric Ho Yin Lau & Yee Ting Ip & Frances Yik Wa Law & Rainbow Tin Hung Ho & Angela Yee Man Leung & Janet Yuen Ha Wong & Jean Woo, 2020. "Hot Weather and Suicide Deaths among Older Adults in Hong Kong, 1976–2014: A Retrospective Study," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(10), pages 1-16, May.
    7. Hung Chak Ho & Sawaid Abbas & Jinxin Yang & Rui Zhu & Man Sing Wong, 2019. "Spatiotemporal Prediction of Increasing Winter Perceived Temperature across a Sub-Tropical City for Sustainable Planning and Climate Change Mitigation," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(3), pages 1-17, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Seasonality Mortality Hong Kong;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:50:y:2000:i:3:p:419-427. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.