Floods and cause-specific mortality in the UK: a nested case-control study

作者：Yao Wu, Danijela Gašević, Bo Wen, Zhengyu Yang, Pei Yu, Guowei Zhou, Yan Zhang, Jiangning Song, Hong Liu, Shanshan Li, Yuming Guo · 发表于：BMC Medicine · 年份：2024 · DOI：10.1186/s12916-024-03412-0 · 被引用次数：17 · 研究领域：Flood Risk Assessment and Management、Disaster Response and Management、Disaster Management and Resilience

BACKGROUND: Floods are the most frequent weather-related disaster, causing significant health impacts worldwide. Limited studies have examined the long-term consequences of flooding exposure. METHODS: Flood data were retrieved from the Dartmouth Flood Observatory and linked with health data from 499,487 UK Biobank participants. To calculate the annual cumulative flooding exposure, we multiplied the duration and severity of each flood event and then summed these values for each year. We conducted a nested case-control analysis to evaluate the long-term effect of flooding exposure on all-cause and cause-specific mortality. Each case was matched with eight controls. Flooding exposure was modelled using a distributed lag non-linear model to capture its nonlinear and lagged effects. RESULTS: The risk of all-cause mortality increased by 6.7% (odds ratio (OR): 1.067, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.063-1.071) for every unit increase in flood index after confounders had been controlled for. The mortality risk from neurological and mental diseases was negligible in the current year, but strongest in the lag years 3 and 4. By contrast, the risk of mortality from suicide was the strongest in the current year (OR: 1.018, 95% CI: 1.008-1.028), and attenuated to lag year 5. Participants with higher levels of education and household income had a higher estimated risk of death from most causes whereas the risk of suicide-related mortality was higher among participants who were obese, had low...