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Daily indoor-to-outdoor temperature and humidity relationships: a sample across seasons and diverse climatic regions

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Abstract

The health consequences of heat and cold are usually evaluated based on associations with outdoor measurements collected at a nearby weather reporting station. However, people in the developed world spend little time outdoors, especially during extreme temperature events. We examined the association between indoor and outdoor temperature and humidity in a range of climates. We measured indoor temperature, apparent temperature, relative humidity, dew point, and specific humidity (a measure of moisture content in air) for one calendar year (2012) in a convenience sample of eight diverse locations ranging from the equatorial region (10 °N) to the Arctic (64 °N). We then compared the indoor conditions to outdoor values recorded at the nearest airport weather station. We found that the shape of the indoor-to-outdoor temperature and humidity relationships varied across seasons and locations. Indoor temperatures showed little variation across season and location. There was large variation in indoor relative humidity between seasons and between locations which was independent of outdoor airport measurements. On the other hand, indoor specific humidity, and to a lesser extent dew point, tracked with outdoor, airport measurements both seasonally and between climates, across a wide range of outdoor temperatures. These results suggest that, in general, outdoor measures of actual moisture content in air better capture indoor conditions than outdoor temperature and relative humidity. Therefore, in studies where water vapor is among the parameters of interest for examining weather-related health effects, outdoor measurements of actual moisture content can be more reliably used as a proxy for indoor exposure than the more commonly examined variables of temperature and relative humidity.

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Acknowledgments

We thank all study volunteers for their participation. This work was supported in part by National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) grants ES000002, R21ES020194, and T32ES023770. JLN also received support from the Benjamin Greely Ferris, Jr. Fellowship Fund at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Environmental Health Sciences, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, 722 W. 168th St, New York, NY, 10032, USA

    Jennifer L. Nguyen

  2. Department of Environmental Health, Department of Epidemiology, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, 665 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA, 02215, USA

    Douglas W. Dockery

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  1. Jennifer L. Nguyen
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  2. Douglas W. Dockery
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Correspondence to Jennifer L. Nguyen.

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Nguyen, J.L., Dockery, D.W. Daily indoor-to-outdoor temperature and humidity relationships: a sample across seasons and diverse climatic regions. Int J Biometeorol 60, 221–229 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00484-015-1019-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00484-015-1019-5

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