Mortality and bioclimatic discomfort in Emilia-Romagna, Italy

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Abstract
We studied the effect of bioclimatic discomfort on resident mortality rate (for all causes of death) in a fairly wide area (about 200 km × 70 km) in the north east of Italy. The regional population is about 4 million inhabitants. We considered three bioclimatic indices associated with physiological discomfort: daily maximum temperature and Thom index 4 constructed using both average and maximum daily temperature (mean and maximum Thom index). We found a very high correlation between all such indices (Pearson correlation index ranging from 0.91 and 0.99) implying that the precise choice of the index is not critical. The spatial variation of the bioclimatic indeces is fairly low. Pearson correlation indices and regression coefficients among maximum Thom indices in eight meteorological stations distributed with sufficient uniformity in the regional territory range from 0.64 to 0.93 and from 0.92 to 1.13 respectively. All these statistics are highly significant. The average of eight station values in the plain area was considered representative for the entire flat area. Mountain areas were excluded from the analysis.

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