ArticleEnvironmental health perspectives2025
Comparing the Role of Relative and Absolute Humidity in Heat-Related Mortality: A Case Time-Series Study in South Korea.
Article in Environmental health perspectives, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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4 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Building the model: a review of input structures in extreme temperature-health.Environmental health : a global access science source · 2026Pooled it
- Cause-specific heat-related mortality in Rio de Janeiro city: Comparing exposure metrics and the role of exposure duration.Environmental epidemiology (Philadelphia, Pa.) · 2026Article
- The impact of humidex on other infectious diarrhea: a study of seasonal heterogeneity and lagged effects using a distributed lag non-linear model.BMC public health · 2026Article
- Humidity may amplify the temperature-related health risks in the context of climate change.Scientific reports · 2026Article
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5 authors.
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Abstract
backgroundEpidemiology studies have reported inconsistent associations of humidity with heat-related health outcomes, despite strong plausibility of such physiological associations. In this regard, there has been a heated debate on which humidity metric to use in epidemiological research.
objectivesThis study aimed to compare the role of two common humidity metrics, relative and absolute humidity, in heat-related mortality in summer using a nationwide mortality dataset.
methodsWe applied a case time-series design for summer (June-September) mortality across the entire 229 districts of South Korea from 2011 to 2019. The temperature was fitted using a distributed lag nonlinear model (DLNM) with 10 lag days. A linear interaction between the cross-basis of temperature and humidity was included in each model to examine the different patterns of association between heat and mortality by humidity level (low and high humidity defined by fifth and 95th percentile of each humidity distribution).
resultsA total of 780,102 deaths were recorded in the summer from 2011 to 2019 in South Korea. The association between extreme heat (temperature approximately above the 99th percentile of the temperature distribution) and mortality was modified more by absolute humidity than by relative humidity, although the effect modification of both humidity indicators was not statistically significant. The relative risks at the 99.Ninth percentile temperature in comparison with the minimum mortality temperature were 1.21 [95% confidence interval (CI): 1.11, 1.31] and 1.22 (95% CI: 1.03, 1.44) for low and high relative humidity, respectively, and 1.11 (95% CI: 0.89, 1.37) and 1.25 (95% CI: 1.15, 1.34) for low and high absolute humidity, respectively. DISCUSSION: Our findings provide epidemiological evidence on the role of relative and absolute humidity in heat-related mortality and suggest that absolute humidity may be a more appropriate metric than relative humidity when assessing health impact. https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP15827.
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