Lai, HakkanLee, Jeong EunHales, SimonHealth Research Council Grant Project Team2025-02-042025-02-042024-08-15(2024). ISEE Conference Abstracts, 2024(1).1078-0475https://hdl.handle.net/2292/71156BACKGROUND AND AIM: The influence of global climate change on temperature-related health outcomes, particularly among vulnerable populations, has been widely acknowledged. The spatial dimensions of these effects, related to population sensitivity by socio-demographic and environmental factors, remain underexplored. METHOD: We analysed data from 686,900 children under five years old, admitted to public hospitals between 2000 and 2019. We investigated associations between daily maximum temperatures (-6 to 40°C) and counts of child admissions, stratified by 2185 statistical areas, day-of-week and month of the year. We modelled temperature effect with a fixed effects quasi-Poisson distributed lag model with lag window of 0–21 days. Long term trends were modelled with a cubic spline of year with 2 degrees of freedom. We examined the modifying impact of socio-economic deprivation, housing factors, and ethnicities on the temperature-morbidity association. RESULTS: Preliminary findings suggest a non-linear exposure-response relationship. Significant elevations in relative risks (RR) were observed for temperatures below and above the 23°C threshold, with RRs ranging from 1.014 [95%CI: 1.011-1.017] to 1.423 [1.362-1.487] at lower temperatures and 1.004 [1.001-1.007] to 9.551 [7.393-12.340] at higher temperatures. Although the overall pattern of the exposure-response curve was consistent across different levels of deprivation and housing factors, there were significant disparities in RR below the reference temperature, with higher RR observed in more deprived areas compared to less deprived areas, and in areas with fewer homeowners compared to areas with more homeowners. Additionally, ethnic disparities in RR were evident above the reference temperature, with higher RR observed among Pacific Island, Asian and Māori children compared to European children. CONCLUSIONS: The findings suggest that child morbidity in Aotearoa New Zealand is highly sensitive to elevated temperatures. Further analyses are exploring the impact of interactions between urban heat islands and additional factors, with the goal of mapping the population attributable fractions under present and future climate conditions.Items in ResearchSpace are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated. Previously published items are made available in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher.https://researchspace.auckland.ac.nz/docs/uoa-docs/rights.htmhttps://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/about-ehp/open-accessConference item10.1289/isee.2024.1869Copyright: The authors