Monday, July 10, 2023

2022 was Europe's deadliest year for heat deaths

Plus more health news |

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More Europeans died because of heat in 2022 than any other year
By Alice Park
Senior Health Correspondent

With extreme heat becoming an increasingly routine part of weather forecasts, health experts are raising the alarm over the potentially fatal risk of rising temperatures.

But it’s challenging to parse exactly how heat kills, since it can contribute silently to other causes of death, such as heart and immune diseases. I spoke to Joan Ballester, a scientist at IS Global in Barcelona, whose team tackled this question by creating a model to provide the best estimate of how many deaths were linked to the hottest summer on record in 2022 in Europe. They looked at mortality rates in 35 countries, concentrating on short-term periods when temperatures soared. They correlated deaths with temperature fluctuations and even after accounting for other factors that could explain the deaths, found the heat contributed to additional mortality that would not otherwise have occurred. Here’s what the analysis showed:

  • Last summer, more than 61,000 deaths in Europe were related to heat.
  • Mediterranean countries, including Italy, Greece, Spain and Portugal recorded among the highest heat-related deaths.
  • Mortality due to heat exposure increased with age.

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AN EXPERT QUOTE

Air conditioning may cause cold-like symptoms because "it changes the the humidification of your nose. Your sinuses and nose are both designed to efficiently bring airflow into the lung. They're designed as a filter system. They're also designed to humidify the air. With that cold air [from AC], differences in temperature, sometimes that can cause irritation."

—Dr. Anthony Gerber, pulmonologist at National Jewish Health

 


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Today's newsletter was written by Alice Park, Jamie Ducharme and edited by Oliver Staley.

 
 
 
 
 
 

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