COLD WAVES AND RESPIRATORY DISEASE: ANALYSIS FROM CLIMATE VULNERABILITY PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

Different ways of geographic space production by social groups deflagrates different repercussions of climate dynamics by atmospheric elements. In this context, this article aims to approach the relationship between extreme events and vulnerability to respiratory diseases from an exploratory study of cold waves in Piracicaba – São Paulo - Brazil. Five different climatic indices were applied to minimum temperature data from an INMET station. 1998-2014-respiratory diseases hospitalization data from DataSUS were correlated comparatively to cold waves given in each technique. Results indicate increases in cold waves occurrence in winter months, especially in the climatological normal period (1961-1990) in comparison to the recent period (1991-2014). Between the different techniques, the cold waves number is uneven and varies from 72 cold waves (CSDI-OMM index) to 329 (IPCC index) in the same period. Vulnerability analysis demonstrated 0-9 and 80+ years old people represents the more affected public for respiratory diseases, representing more than 50% of all the hospitalizations (21,115). In general, the winter months in which presented more cold waves totals also presented more hospitalizations, especially in July, with more than 200 hospitalizations. The results show that temperature (cold wave) is not the principal responsible to respiratory diseases deflagration. There is the need to approach extreme event and vulnerability concepts to a sociospatial analysis of respiratory diseases production, in which the climatic elements are only one factor in the diseases deflagration.