Establishing Heat Alert Thresholds for the Varied Climatic Regions of British Columbia, Canada

Kathleen E. McLean, Rebecca Stranberg, Melissa MacDonald, Gregory R. A. Richardson, Tom Kosatsky and Sarah B. Henderson
Additional contact information
Kathleen E. McLean: British Columbia Centre for Disease Control, 655 West 12th Ave, Vancouver, BC V5Z 4R4, Canada
Rebecca Stranberg: Climate Change and Innovation Bureau, Healthy Environments and Consumer Safety Branch, Health Canada, 269 Laurier Avenue West, Ottawa, ON K1A 0K9, Canada
Melissa MacDonald: National Health and Air Quality Program, Meteorological Service of Canada, Environment and Climate Change Canada, 45 Alderney Dr, Dartmouth, NS B2Y 2N6, Canada
Gregory R. A. Richardson: Climate Change and Innovation Bureau, Healthy Environments and Consumer Safety Branch, Health Canada, 269 Laurier Avenue West, Ottawa, ON K1A 0K9, Canada
Tom Kosatsky: British Columbia Centre for Disease Control, 655 West 12th Ave, Vancouver, BC V5Z 4R4, Canada
Sarah B. Henderson: British Columbia Centre for Disease Control, 655 West 12th Ave, Vancouver, BC V5Z 4R4, Canada

IJERPH, 2018, vol. 15, issue 9, 1-14

Abstract: Following an extreme heat event in 2009, a Heat Alert and Response System (HARS) was implemented for the greater Vancouver area of British Columbia (BC), Canada. This system has provided a framework for guiding public health interventions and assessing population response and adaptation to extreme heat in greater Vancouver, but no other parts of BC were covered by HARS. The objective of this study was to identify evidence-based heat alert thresholds for the Southwest, Southeast, Northwest, and Northeast regions to facilitate the introduction of HARS across BC. This was done based on a national approach that considers high temperatures on two consecutive days and the intervening overnight low, referred to as the high-low-high approach. Daily forecast and observed air temperatures and daily mortality counts for May through September of 2004 through 2016 were obtained. For each date (day t ), day t−2 forecasts were used to assign high temperatures for day t and day t+1 and the overnight low. A range of high-low-high threshold combinations was assessed for each region by finding associations with daily mortality using time-series models and other considerations. The following thresholds were established: 29-16-29 °C in the Southwest; 35-18-35 °C in the Southeast; 28-13-28 °C in the Northwest; and 29-14-29 °C in the Northeast. Heat alert thresholds for all regions in BC provide health authorities with information on dangerously hot temperature conditions and inform the activation of protective public health interventions.

Keywords: extreme heat; temperature; mortality; public health surveillance; heat alert and response system; climate change; early warning systems (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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