This study analysed the heat-related impact on mortality and morbidity for a rural population in Senegal. To evaluate the effect of the duration of heat exposure, we measured heat by the average apparent temperature (with effect of humidity) in a period preceding the event (medical visit, death) ranging from one, five, and ten to thirty days. We investigated the temperature-mortality or -morbidity relationship by vulnerable groups (children and elderly people) and by temperature type (daily minimum, maximum and average). Finally, we used three types of models: GLM, GAM and ARIMAX.

We found that, between 1984 and 2014, high heat resulted in an excess of mortality and medical diagnosed morbidity, especially among children and elderly people.