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Environmental heat-related health symptoms among community in a tropical city

Due to the changing climate, more frequent and prolonged heatwaves are expected to have a catastrophic consequence on urban human settlement. In tropical cities such as Kuala Lumpur (KL), the quality of the urban environment is made worse by urban heat island (UHI) phenomena due to poor urban planni...

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Main Authors:	Aghamohammadi, Nasrin, Fong, Chng Saun, Idrus, Muniratul Husna Mohd, Ramakreshnan, Logaraj, Sulaiman, Nik Meriam Nik
Format:	Article
Published:	Elsevier 2021
Subjects:	GE Environmental Sciences QH Natural history
Online Access:	http://eprints.um.edu.my/27873/
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spelling	my.um.eprints.278732022-04-08T01:00:31Z http://eprints.um.edu.my/27873/ Environmental heat-related health symptoms among community in a tropical city Aghamohammadi, Nasrin Fong, Chng Saun Idrus, Muniratul Husna Mohd Ramakreshnan, Logaraj Sulaiman, Nik Meriam Nik GE Environmental Sciences QH Natural history Due to the changing climate, more frequent and prolonged heatwaves are expected to have a catastrophic consequence on urban human settlement. In tropical cities such as Kuala Lumpur (KL), the quality of the urban environment is made worse by urban heat island (UHI) phenomena due to poor urban planning practices. The prolonged exposure to urban heat is hypothesized to influence human health and well-being, especially in tropical urban areas with high population density. Therefore, a study was conducted to understand the association of urban heat stress with physical, psychosomatic and psychological (PPP) health symptoms within a tropical urban setting. Continuous urban microclimate monitoring is conducted using an automated weather station to define the level of heat stress in the study area expressed as Physiological Equivalent Temperature (PET). A crosssectional approach is used to identify heat-related health symptoms experienced by the urban population. Through exploratory factor analysis, a total of 38 PPP health symptoms are reduced into 8 heat-related health clusters which are sensory organ pain, heat-related illnesses, cardiopulmonary, pain, fatigue, anxiety, somatization, and depression-related symptoms. Heat stress was found to significantly affect psychosomatic pain (p = 0.016) as well as psychological anxiety (p = 0.022) and somatization (p = 0.041) related symptoms. Other health clusters were not significantly associated with heat stress. More studies are needed to unravel the influence of confounding factors and the long-term impact of urban heat on the health and well-being of the urban population in a tropical city. (C) 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Elsevier 2021-08-15 Article PeerReviewed Aghamohammadi, Nasrin and Fong, Chng Saun and Idrus, Muniratul Husna Mohd and Ramakreshnan, Logaraj and Sulaiman, Nik Meriam Nik (2021) Environmental heat-related health symptoms among community in a tropical city. Science of the Total Environment, 782. ISSN 0048-9697, DOI https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.146611 <https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.146611>. 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.146611
institution	Universiti Malaya
building	UM Library
collection	Institutional Repository
continent	Asia
country	Malaysia
content_provider	Universiti Malaya
content_source	UM Research Repository
url_provider	http://eprints.um.edu.my/
topic	GE Environmental Sciences QH Natural history
spellingShingle	GE Environmental Sciences QH Natural history Aghamohammadi, Nasrin Fong, Chng Saun Idrus, Muniratul Husna Mohd Ramakreshnan, Logaraj Sulaiman, Nik Meriam Nik Environmental heat-related health symptoms among community in a tropical city
description	Due to the changing climate, more frequent and prolonged heatwaves are expected to have a catastrophic consequence on urban human settlement. In tropical cities such as Kuala Lumpur (KL), the quality of the urban environment is made worse by urban heat island (UHI) phenomena due to poor urban planning practices. The prolonged exposure to urban heat is hypothesized to influence human health and well-being, especially in tropical urban areas with high population density. Therefore, a study was conducted to understand the association of urban heat stress with physical, psychosomatic and psychological (PPP) health symptoms within a tropical urban setting. Continuous urban microclimate monitoring is conducted using an automated weather station to define the level of heat stress in the study area expressed as Physiological Equivalent Temperature (PET). A crosssectional approach is used to identify heat-related health symptoms experienced by the urban population. Through exploratory factor analysis, a total of 38 PPP health symptoms are reduced into 8 heat-related health clusters which are sensory organ pain, heat-related illnesses, cardiopulmonary, pain, fatigue, anxiety, somatization, and depression-related symptoms. Heat stress was found to significantly affect psychosomatic pain (p = 0.016) as well as psychological anxiety (p = 0.022) and somatization (p = 0.041) related symptoms. Other health clusters were not significantly associated with heat stress. More studies are needed to unravel the influence of confounding factors and the long-term impact of urban heat on the health and well-being of the urban population in a tropical city. (C) 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
format	Article
author	Aghamohammadi, Nasrin Fong, Chng Saun Idrus, Muniratul Husna Mohd Ramakreshnan, Logaraj Sulaiman, Nik Meriam Nik
author_facet	Aghamohammadi, Nasrin Fong, Chng Saun Idrus, Muniratul Husna Mohd Ramakreshnan, Logaraj Sulaiman, Nik Meriam Nik
author_sort	Aghamohammadi, Nasrin
title	Environmental heat-related health symptoms among community in a tropical city
title_short	Environmental heat-related health symptoms among community in a tropical city
title_full	Environmental heat-related health symptoms among community in a tropical city
title_fullStr	Environmental heat-related health symptoms among community in a tropical city
title_full_unstemmed	Environmental heat-related health symptoms among community in a tropical city
title_sort	environmental heat-related health symptoms among community in a tropical city
publisher	Elsevier
publishDate	2021
url	http://eprints.um.edu.my/27873/
_version_	1735409533450190848
score	13.211869

Environmental heat-related health symptoms among community in a tropical city

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