title: Heat stroke internet searches can be a new heatwave health warning surveillance indicator.
abstract: The impact of major heatwave shocks on population morbidity and mortality has become an urgent public health concern. However, Current heatwave warning systems suffer from a lack of validation and an inability to provide accurate health risk warnings in a timely way. Here we conducted a correlation and linear regression analysis to test the relationship between heat stroke internet searches and heat stroke health outcomes in Shanghai, China, during the summer of 2013. We show that the resulting heatstroke index captures much of the variation in heat stroke cases and deaths. The correlation between heat stroke deaths, the search index and the incidence of heat stroke is higher than the correlation with maximum temperature. This study highlights a fast and effective heatwave health warning indicator with potential to be used throughout the world.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Environmental Health and Related Product Safety, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Beijing, China. No. 7 Panjiayuan Nanli, Chaoyang District, Beijing, 100021 China.
authors.forename: Tiantian
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Public health Emergency Center, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Fan
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Ding
authors.affiliation: Institute of Environmental Health and Related Product Safety, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Beijing, China. No. 7 Panjiayuan Nanli, Chaoyang District, Beijing, 100021 China.
authors.forename: Qinghua
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.affiliation: Institute of Environmental Health and Related Product Safety, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Beijing, China. No. 7 Panjiayuan Nanli, Chaoyang District, Beijing, 100021 China.
authors.forename: Yi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, USA.
authors.forename: Patrick L
authors.initials: PL
authors.lastname: Kinney