Evaluating Effectiveness and Economic Benefits of Meteorological Health Warning System: A Case Study of Stroke Warnings in Tianjin, China

This file serves as the Supplementary Information for the article entitled "Evaluating Effectiveness and Economic Benefits of Meteorological Health Warning System: A Case Study of Stroke Warnings in Tianjin, China" published in International Journal of Disaster Risk Science. It includes literature review, supporting statistical analyses, and supplementary result tables in this research. All resources are only for academic reference. Unauthorized commercial use, secondary distribution and arbitrary modification are prohibited. Abstract: Meteorological health warning systems have received global attention for their role in climate health adaptation. However, existing evaluation studies rarely considered nonlinear and time-lagged relationships between meteorological factors and health outcomes. Calculations of economic benefits have not fully accounted for labor losses, nor the impact on other economic sectors. To design the methodology of evaluating effectiveness of meteorological health warning system, we incorporated warning variable into the exposure-lag-response relationship between temperature and health outcomes like hospital admissions. We also estimate savings in hospitalization expenses, economic benefits of avoiding labor losses, and impacts on other economic sectors. Using Tianjin’s stroke meteorological risk warning system as a case, results showed that the warnings have effectively alleviated burdens on insurance providers and patient households, and avoided labor losses. From January 2021 to September 2022, an average of 6.92% stroke hospital admissions were reduced in four warning periods. It resulted in savings of 2.66 million US dollars (USD) in government and 849.9 thousand USD in residents. Through avoiding labor losses, four warnings generated economic benefit of 1.61 million USD. When the saved expenses and avoided labor losses were incorporated into input-output model, scenario analysis suggested potential increase in economic gross output of 5.76 million USD, indicating extensive impacts on other economic sectors. Future refined effectiveness and economic benefits evaluation could facilitate further deployment and optimization, of meteorological health warning systems.