Temperature, Human Health, and Adaptation: A Review of the Empirical Literature

Olivier Deschenes

No 18345, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: This paper presents a survey of the empirical literature studying the relationship between health outcomes, temperature, and adaptation to temperature extremes. The objective of the paper is to highlight the many remaining gaps in the empirical literature and to provide guidelines for improving the current Integrated Assessment Model (IAM) literature that seeks to incorporate human health and adaptation in its framework. I begin by presenting the conceptual and methodological issues associated with the measurement of the effect of temperature extremes on health, and the role of adaptation in possibly muting these effects. The main conclusion that emerges from the literature is that despite the wide variety of data sets and settings most studies find that temperature extremes lead to significant reductions in health, generally measured with excess mortality. Regarding the role of adaptation in mitigating the effects of extreme temperature on health, the available knowledge is limited, in part due to the lack of real-world data on measures of adaptation behaviors. Finally, the paper discusses the implications of the currently available evidence for assessments of potential human health impacts of global climate change.

JEL-codes: I1 Q5 Q54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ene, nep-env, nep-hea and nep-res
Note: EEE
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Published as Deschenes, Olivier, 2014. "Temperature, human health, and adaptation: A review of the empirical literature," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 606-619.

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w18345.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Temperature, human health, and adaptation: A review of the empirical literature (2014)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:18345

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w18345

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().