Cold and Mortality in a Cross-Sectional and Lifecycle Perspective: Evidence from Competing Models

We study the relationship between exposure to cold and mortality over humans' lifecycle. Our unique data comprise entire life spells of 30,150 Swedes who were born between 1930 and 1935. Exploiting information on daily temperatures over 84 years, from 1930 to 2013, we model lifecyle exposure to outdoor temperatures considering humans' relocation and migration pattern. We model the temperature effects on all-cause, cause-specific and subdistribution-specific mortality hazards through competing risk models; time-varying temperature indicators assess the impact on the cumulative incidence function for deaths due to heart attacks, other heart conditions, cancer, and respiratory diseases. We find that extreme cold significantly increases the incidence of mortality due to heart attacks and discuss biological mechanisms. Similarly, we find a significant link to mortality due to various cancer endpoints. These cancer mortality effects are triggered at the onset of cold waves, which is consistent with the notion of ``harvesting.'' We conclude that lifecycle exposure to cold and mortality are significantly linked via multiple causes of death.