Heat-Health Warning Systems: A Comparison of the Predictive Capacity of Different Approaches to Identifying Dangerously Hot Days

Objectives. We compared the ability of several heat-health warning systems to predict days of heat-associated mortality using common data sets. Methods. Heat-health warning systems initiate emergency public health interventions once forecasts have identified weather conditions to breach predetermined trigger levels. We examined 4 commonly used trigger-setting approaches: (1) synoptic classification, (2) epidemiologic assessment of the temperature-mortality relationship, (3) temperature-humidity index, and (4) physiologic classification. We applied each approach in Chicago, Illinois; London, United Kingdom; Madrid, Spain; and Montreal, Canada, to identify days expected to be associated with the highest heat-related mortality. Results. We found little agreement across the approaches in which days were identified as most dangerous. In general, days identified by temperature-mortality assessment were associated with the highest excess mortality. Conclusions. Triggering of alert days and ultimately the initiation of emergency responses by a heat-health warning system varies significantly across approaches adopted to establish triggers. (Am J Public Health. 2010;100: 1137-1144. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2009.169748)