Urban Heat Island and Health Effects in Bangkok, Thailand

Abstract

Urban heat island (UHI), a phenomena happens when the temperature in urban area are warmer than sub-urban, is widely acknowledged to have significant impact on human comfort and health. The study explores the health effects of urban heat island (UHI) in Bangkok. Using 400 randomly selected respondents, the study focuses on three health effects namely, physical health impacts, mental health impacts and health outcomes. The temperature data are obtained from urban and non-urban weather stations in Bangkok and its vicinity. Descriptive statistics are used to establish associations between UHI and health effects. It is found that there is a significant association between these variables when we established bivariate correlation (spearman rank). It can be inferred that UHI affects the health indirectly through the heat interferences with daily activities.