Assessing the health effects and associated molecular mechanisms of non-optimal ambient temperatures in diverse populations

Climate change significantly alters global exposure to non-optimal temperatures (i.e. heat or cold), a leading cause of disease burden. Despite its significance, important knowledge gaps exist due to the focus on area-based outdoor temperature and disease data in existing literature, and the limited linkages between individual-level data on temperature exposure, disease development, and molecular biomarkers. This fellowship aims to thoroughly investigate the effects of non-optimal temperatures on risks of hospitalisation and death in diverse populations, and to explore the relevant biological mechanisms. It will integrate diverse data from temperature monitoring studies and population-based biobanks with extensive information on personal and housing characteristics, longitudinal medical records, and high-dimensional multi-omics biomarkers in UK and China. The four work packages will (i) generate enhanced personal temperature exposure data, (ii) assess the prospective associations of personal temperature exposure with cause-specific hospitalisation, multi-morbidity, and death, (iii) identify relevant biomarkers and pathways, and (iv) quantify temperature-attributed disease burden. Further collaboration will involve cohort-analysis in more diverse populations, experimental studies to verify biological pathways, and projected temperature-attributed disease and economic burden by climate change scenarios. The study outputs will fill longstanding knowledge gaps, enhance disease and economic burden estimations, and inform climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies.