What is the impact that climate change is having on the health of specific people? Who are the patients most exposed to heat waves? This is the double question to which a pioneering project seeks to provide a scientific answer that seeks to measure, among other aspects, the consequences that heat waves are having on the most vulnerable groups of patients. The investigation will be promoted by Mútua Terrassa and the Servei Meterològic de Catalunya.
This ambitious research seeks to take advantage of the large health structure of Mútua Terrasa, integrated with digitized data and medical histories of some 300,000 people cared for in its medical centers, mental health centers, and socio-sanitary units (residences...).
"By having these statistical data, we can identify the impacts of heat waves on our reference area and the people we care for," says Daniel Dalmau, director of the Terrassa Mutual Teaching and Research Foundation.
The study will focus on chronic diseases (diabetes, cardiovascular, respiratory or metabolic conditions, hypertension...) on which there is little information related to high temperatures. In this sense, a study by the Department of Health acts as a leitmotif in which an excess mortality of 10% related to heat was detected throughout Catalonia last summer.
Chronic diseases represent one of the main health problems worldwide, and people who suffer from them may be more vulnerable to the effects of climate change. However, this matter has been little studied and the scientific literature presents few examples.
"The first thing we are going to do is establish the relationship between climate change and chronic diseases," says Tomás Pérez Porcuna, scientific director of the foundation.
To this end, the health data (digitized and accumulated in the last 15 years) will be crossed with the information from the climatic series, for which big data and artificial intelligence techniques will be used; In this way, they hope to be able to define "which are the diseases that are most vulnerable to climate change and, in addition, we must determine which are the climatic conditions and circumstances that most affect health," adds Pérez Porcuna. These factors include changes in temperature, but also sudden changes associated with atmospheric pressure or the degree of humidity.
In addition to the retrospective approach, a second study will be carried out with the follow-up of groups of patients in which clinical, environmental and climatic information will be integrated, so that, again with artificial intelligence techniques, practical information is available. The promoters of this initiative have conspired to obtain indicators that allow prevention and anticipation by monitoring the specific people most likely to see their conditions aggravated, as explained by Pérez Porcuna and Josep Rull, director of Compromís Verd Mútua Terrasa.
In short, the aim is to adapt the health system to climate change and offer advance recommendations to patients; and, above all, ensure that the information not only goes to patients (who could receive personalized and adequate attention at any time of the year), but also to health professionals, who could have real-time information on patients more vulnerable depending on the weather conditions and their disease.
A third benefited sector would be health managers, who may have information to size up and organize themselves according to weather conditions. The UPC and the URV are participating in the project.
Xavier Álvarez del Castillo, professor of the UNESCO Chair of Sustainability at the UPC, explained that the participation of this university will consist of the analysis of the future regarding anthropogenic aspects related to climate change and, on the other hand, "pour all the knowledge into programming, analysis and definition of necessary hardware to carry out big data analysis".
Dr. Maria Vinaixa, from the URV, an expert in research on low-weight molecules (metabolomics) indicated that information on the compounds present in the body (blood, urine, tissues...) will also be taken into account, both from the excess proteins as those derived from certain conditions in the environment. "We are specialists in measuring all these compounds," she recalled.
The agreement was initialed by Dr. Esteve Picola, director of Mútua Terrassa, and Sarai Sarroca, director of the Meteorological Service of Catalonia.
