Spatial Variability in the Effect of High Ambient Temperature on Mortality: An Analysis at Municipality Level within the Greater Athens Area.

Spatial variability in temperature exists within metropolitan areas but very few studies have investigated intra-urban differentiation in the temperature-mortality effects. We investigated whether local characteristics of 42 Municipalities within the Greater Athens Area lead to modified temperature effects on mortality and if effect modifiers can be identified. Generalized Estimating Equations models were used to assess the effect of high ambient temperature on the total and cause-specific daily number of deaths and meta-regression to investigate effect modification.