Springer (part of Springer Nature), Theoretical and Applied Climatology, 3-4(108), p. 591-599
DOI: 10.1007/s00704-011-0555-0
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This paper investigates whether there is any association between the daily mortality for the wider region of Athens, Greece and the thermal conditions, for the 10-year period 1992–2001. The daily mortality datasets were acquired from the Hellenic Statistical Service and the daily meteorological datasets, concerning daily maximum and minimum air temperature, from the Hellinikon/Athens meteorological station, established at the headquarters of the Greek Meteorological Service. Besides, the daily values of the thermal indices Physiologically Equivalent Temperature (PET) and Universal Thermal Climate Index (UTCI) were evaluated in order to interpret the grade of physiological stress. The first step was the application of Pearson’s χ 2 test to the compiled contingency tables, resulting in that the probability of independence is zero (p = 0.000); namely, mortality is in close relation to the air temperature and PET/UTCI. Furthermore, the findings extracted by the generalized linear models showed that, statistically significant relationships (p