Building hypotheses to understand the synergistic effects of heat and pollution exposure in a changing climate

Abstract

The increasing intensity, frequency and duration of extreme weather events due to climate change pose a broad range of health risks,1 and the synergistic effects of extreme temperature co-occurring with other hazardous exposures such as air pollution may result in higher risks of all-cause mortality and cardiovascular and respiratory morbidity than exposure to either event alone.2 3 There are a number of hypothesised mechanisms for this interaction effect, including increased susceptibility to heat effects on chronic conditions affected by air pollution exposure, exacerbation of pollution effects due to temperature-induced stress, and shared pathophysiological pathways (eg, systemic inflammation), but specific physiological mechanisms are not well understood.2 In this editorial, we discuss this aspect of a recently published study by Cheng et al in Thorax, ‘Ambient Formaldehyde Combined with High Temperature Exposure and Respiratory Disease Admissions Among Children: A Time-Series Study across Multiple Cities’.4 The expansion of environmental …