Ambient Temperature During Gestation and Cold-Related Adult Mortality in a Swedish Cohort, 1915 to 2002

Tim A. Bruckner (), Gerard van den Berg, Kirk R. Smith () and Ralph A. Catalano ()
Additional contact information
Tim A. Bruckner: University of California, Irvine
Kirk R. Smith: University of California, Berkeley
Ralph A. Catalano: University of California, Berkeley

No 7986, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: For all climatic regions, mortality due to cold exceeds mortality due to heat. We examine whether cold-related mortality in adulthood varies positively with unusually benign ambient temperature during gestation, using data on over 13,500 Swedes from the Uppsala Birth Cohort Study born in 1915-1929 and followed until 2003. We link daily thermometer temperatures in Uppsala (1914 to 2002) to subjects, from their estimated date of conception onwards. We estimate survival models with time-varying explanatory variables, focusing on the two leading causes of cold-related death in adulthood: ischaemic heart disease (IHD) and stroke. An increase in the prevalence of warm temperatures during gestation leads to a significantly higher rate of mortality due to cold-related IHD. However, we do not find such a relation for cold-related stroke mortality. Additional analyses show that birthweight percentile or gestational age do not mediate discovered findings. The IHD results indicate that ambient temperature during gestation – independent of birth month – modifies the relation between cold and adult mortality.

Keywords: health; cold spells; fetal development; cerebrovascular disorders; climate; temperature regulation; ischaemic heart disease; migration (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I12 Q54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 34 pages
Date: 2014-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-env, nep-hea and nep-his
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

Published - published in: Social Science & Medicine, 119 2014, 191–197

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Journal Article: Ambient temperature during gestation and cold-related adult mortality in a Swedish cohort, 1915–2002 (2014)
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