Is home where the heat is? comparing residence-based with mobility-based measures of heat exposure in San Diego, California

Background

Heat can vary spatially within an urban area. Individual-level heat exposure may thus depend on an individual’s day-to-day travel patterns (also called mobility patterns or activity space), yet heat exposure is commonly measured based on place of residence.

Objective

In this study, we compared measures assessing exposure to two heat indicators using place of residence with those defined considering participants’ day-to-day mobility patterns.

Methods

Participants (n = 599; aged 35-80 years old [mean =59 years]) from San Diego County, California wore a GPS device to measure their day-to-day travel over 14-day intervals between 2014-10-17 and 2017-10-06. We measured exposure to two heat indicators (land-surface temperature [LST] and air temperature) using an approach considering their mobility patterns and an approach considering only their place of residence. We compared participant mean and maximum exposure values from each method for each indicator.

Results

The overall mobility-based mean LST exposure (34.7 °C) was almost equivalent to the corresponding residence-based mean (34.8 °C; mean difference in means = −0.09 °C). Similarly, the mean difference between the overall mobility-based mean air temperature exposure (19.2 °C) and the corresponding residence-based mean (19.2 °C) was negligible (−0.02 °C). Meaningful differences emerged, however, when comparing maximums, particularly for LST. The mean mobility-based maximum LST was 40.3 °C compared with a mean residence-based maximum of 35.8 °C, a difference of 4.51 °C. The difference in maximums was considerably smaller for air temperature (mean = 0.40 °C; SD = 1.41 °C) but nevertheless greater than the corresponding difference in means.

Impact

As the climate warms, assessment of heat exposure both at and away from home is important for understanding its health impacts. We compared two approaches to estimate exposure to two heat measures (land surface temperature and air temperature). The first approach only considered exposure at home, and the second considered day-to-day travel. Considering the average exposure estimated by each approach, the results were almost identical. Considering the maximum exposure experienced (specific definition in text), the differences between the two approaches were more considerable, especially for land surface temperature.