The current growing worldwide interests in climate change have revealed that it causes impacts to human health from warmer temperatures. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2007), the average global temperature went up by about 0.74oC during the 20th century and is likely to continue. This ongoing increase in average temperature, in conjunction with increased weather variability, is expected to increase the frequency and intensity of heat waves. Strong epidemiological and climatological evidence linking temperature variations and mortality suggests that the projected increase in global average temperature, accompanied by an expected increase in variability, will lead to an overall increase in the number of deaths due to hot temperatures and a decrease in the number due to cold (Parry et al., 2007). The elderly and persons with chronic disease are particularly vulnerable to heat because thermal stress affects their susceptibility moreover the interesting group is working people who are commonly expose to heat carrying out heavy labor that will influence the future pattern of deaths and hospitalisation during time of extreme heat.
To date, most studies on temperature-mortality effect have been conducted in developed and non-tropical countries. This leaves unanswered questions about the effects of warmer weather in tropical and developing countries where very high heat will become more frequent, and poor populations in urban area may have worse health impacts from exposure to high temperatures.
Thailand is a middle income tropical country in which around one third of population lives in urban areas. Global warming and some expected health effects, in particular on infectious diseases, have received considerable attention in the Thai mass media, but there has been almost no focus on thermal stress and associated mortality that could rise due to increasing temperatures. Average temperature in Thailand has increased 0.71 degrees over the last century, and further increase is expected. This block was builded to share the information on health impacts of thermal stress by identifying heat-related mortality due to climate change in Thailand. Hope it will be useful for health impact assessment for current heat exposures and implications for health when climate change makes Thailand hotter.
