Paradoxical home temperatures during cold weather: a proof-of-concept study
- PDF / 648,768 Bytes
- 12 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 102 Downloads / 159 Views
ORIGINAL PAPER
Paradoxical home temperatures during cold weather: a proof-of-concept study Niilo R. I. Ryti 1,2 & Anton Korpelainen 1,2 & Olli Seppänen 3 & Jouni J. K. Jaakkola 1,2 Received: 17 March 2019 / Revised: 16 February 2020 / Accepted: 27 August 2020 # The Author(s) 2020
Abstract There is substantial epidemiological evidence on the associations between cold weather and adverse health effects. Meteorological alarm systems are being developed globally, and generalized protective advice is given to the public based on outdoor exposure parameters. It is not clear how these shared outdoor exposure parameters relate to the individual-level thermal exposure indoors, where the majority of time is spent. We hypothesized a priori that there are opposite correlations between indoor and outdoor temperatures in residential apartments. Apartments were classified into 3 categories according to their response to declining outdoor temperature: under-controlled apartments cool down, controlled apartments maintain constant indoor temperature level, and over-controlled apartments warm up. Outdoor and indoor temperatures were measured in 30-min intervals in 417 residential apartments in 14 buildings in Kotka, Finland, between February and April 2018 with outdoor temperatures ranging from − 20.4 °C to + 14.0 °C. Different apartment types were present in all buildings. Floor and orientation did not explain the divergence. Indoor temperatures below the limit value + 20 °C by building code occurred in 26.2%, 7.9%, and 23.6% of the under-controlled, controlled, and over-controlled apartments, some in conjunction with increasing outdoor temperatures. Indoor temperatures above the limit + 25 °C occurred but were more rare. This proof-of-concept study demonstrates that while the home environment may be a source of thermal stress during cold weather, generalized advice for adjusting the heating may lead to paradoxical exposures in some cases. More elaborate conceptualizations of everyday thermal exposures are needed to safely reduce weather-related health risks using shared meteorological alarm systems. Keywords Health . Heating . Indoor temperature . Outdoor temperature . Temperature . Weather
Introduction There is substantial global evidence on the associations between outdoor temperature and adverse health effects (Bhaskaran et al. 2009; Guo et al. 2012; Monteiro et al. 2012; Ye et al. 2012; Gasparrini et al. 2015; Ryti et al. 2016; Ryti et al. 2017; Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s00484-020-01998-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Jouni J. K. Jaakkola [email protected] 1
Center for Environmental and Respiratory Health Research (CERH), Faculty of Medicine, University of Oulu, PO Box 5000, FI-90014 Oulu, Finland
2
Medical Research Center Oulu, Oulu University Hospital and University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland
3
FINVAC, Helsinki, Finland
Vicedo-Cabrera et al. 2018). Shared outdoor temperatures are commonly used as the pr
Data Loading...
