title: Mapping rural community and dairy cow heat stress in Southern Ontario: A common geographic pattern from 2010 to 2012.
abstract: Climate change has increased the occurrence of heat waves, causing heat stress among humans and livestock, with potentially fatal consequences. Heat stress maps provide information about related health risks and insight for control strategies. Weather data were collected throughout Southern Ontario, and the heat stress index (HSI) was estimated for 2010-2012. Geostatistical kriging was applied to map heat stress, heat waves, and control periods. Average HSI for each period ranged from 55 to 78 during control periods, and from 65 to 84 during heat waves, surpassing levels where morbidity is known to increase substantially. Heat stress followed a temporally consistent geographic pattern. HSI maps indicate high-risk areas for heat-related illness and indicate areas where agriculture and human health may be at increased risk in future.
authors.affiliation: a Department of Population Medicine , Ontario Veterinary College, University of Guelph , Guelph , Ontario , Canada.
authors.forename: Katherine E
authors.initials: KE
authors.lastname: Bishop-Williams
authors.affiliation: a Department of Population Medicine , Ontario Veterinary College, University of Guelph , Guelph , Ontario , Canada.|b Department of Mathematics and Statistics , University of Guelph , Guelph , Ontario , Canada.|c Institute of Biometry, Epidemiology and Information Processing, University of Veterinary Medicine , Hanover , Germany.
authors.forename: Olaf
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Berke
authors.affiliation: a Department of Population Medicine , Ontario Veterinary College, University of Guelph , Guelph , Ontario , Canada.
authors.forename: David L
authors.initials: DL
authors.lastname: Pearl
authors.affiliation: a Department of Population Medicine , Ontario Veterinary College, University of Guelph , Guelph , Ontario , Canada.
authors.forename: David F
authors.initials: DF
authors.lastname: Kelton
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002417:Cattle; D018882:Heat Stress Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology*; D006358:Hot Temperature; D009864:Ontario / Q000453:epidemiology; D012424:Rural Population; D062206:Spatial Analysis
keywords: Dairy cows; Southern Ontario; heat stress; heat wave; kriging