Browsing by Subject "moderating factor"

Climate change have widespread increasing negative health impacts on urban residents. The impacts vary in different temporal and spatial dimensions and include health impacts such as increases in heat related illnesses, respiratory issues, and vector-borne diseases. Vulnerability and exposure to those impacts depend on different interacting factors from city level systems to individual characteristics. Papers that study how cities’ moderating factors impact on different climate change induced health impacts are an important part for setting adaptation policies. Little is known how city systems and system factors (social and physical environment and policy and planning) moderate climate change induced health impacts in cities and their role in different vulnerability and exposure outcomes. With an analytical framework that utilizes systems approach and follows conceptual framework that considers city systems as moderating factors to different vulnerability and exposure outcomes, this thesis answers the questions: How are the city systems and system factors, and climate risk elements (vulnerability, exposure) related? And what are the different types of interactions that lead to vulnerability and exposure outcomes? The main data of this qualitative case study is collected with 18 expert pair-interviews. The experts are selected from four residential areas that represent different municipalities in Helsinki and Turku. The interviews are transcribed and coded with Atlas.ti. The findings of this study emphasize that moderating factors have an impact on different vulnerability and exposure outcomes. The results also show that adaptation measures that would consider cities moderating factors, would have a significant impact on reduced exposure and vulnerability to begin with. Identification of different city system, climate risk and health impact pathway synergies doesn’t promote better adaptation policies as such. Better understanding of efficient adaptation policies require further studies of the consequences resulting from the policy decisions in physical and social environment in the long run.