Variability and trend of Heat Index (HI) in Thailand during 1975-2017 and their relationships
with some demographic-health variables were analyzed. Results revealed the spatially coherent
and widespread significant increase in Thailand’s HI, consistent with significant country-wide
warming. Thailand’s HI as a whole significantly increased by 0.53°C per decade, and it was in the
caution level but will gradually rise to the extreme caution level in the near future. Accompanying
this trend, the HI distribution and characteristic have significantly shifted towards a higher
health impact level in the recent decades. In addition, year-to-year HI variability significantly
correlated with the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) index, providing additional evidence
that ENSO events are an important source of Thailand’s climate variability including extremely
hot weather. Further analysis showed that Thailand’s HI had good positive associations with
some demographic-health variables. These results provide some clues that increasing HI may
contribute to elevated cases of heat-sensitive illness and pose an additional health risk to Thai
people especially the elder persons which have rapidly grown under the aging society era. To
better understand how heat and health in Thailand are linked, however, further detection and
attribution studies based on newly available long-term health data are needed.
Keywords
Heat index; Trend; Demographic; Health
ENIVRONMENT ASIA
Published by : Thai Society of Higher Education Institutes on Environment Contributions welcome at : http://www.tshe.org/en/
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