2023-10-18 02:31:22
CARMEN FERNNDEZ
Barcelona
Updated Wednesday, October 18, 2023 – 02:31
A new application, called MACE, crosses daily mortality data from MoMo with temperature data from Aemet to refine the records.
A woman cools down an elderly man with a fan on the Rambla, at the end of August.ALEJANDRO GARCAEFE
This summer has been third with highest mortality attributable to excessive heat, with 2,155 deaths, after the heat wave of 2003 and the summer of 2022, which accumulated 3,012 deaths. This is one of the conclusions that emerge from a new digital tool, a web application still in the development phase, created by scientists from the Institute of Environmental Diagnostics and Water Studies (Idaea-CSIC) of Barcelona, the University of Valencia and the Foundation for Climate Research.
The web application called Mortality Attributable to Heat in Spain (MACE) is based on data from the Daily Mortality Monitoring (MOMO) of the Carlos III Health Institute and the temperatures recorded by the State Meteorological Agency (Aemet) in order to calculate the mortality attributable to moderate heat, extreme heat and excessive heat in the period of the year from June to August.
It is updated daily but, like the MOMO and Aemet data, it’s two days late. Its authors are working so that, in addition to national data, the tool provides information about differences by province and vulnerable population groups (age and gender). They also propose to extend data collection from May to October for the next version of the application, scheduled for 2024.
Since January, the MoMo has recorded 329,462 deaths, 6,834 attributable to temperature, according to the last report published. Thus, Galicia with 1,704 is the most affected community, followed by Andaluca with 1,276 and Castilla y León with 683.
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Aurelio Tobas, researcher at Idaea and author of the work, explains to this newspaper that Aemet and the Ministry of Health give notice of the arrival of a heat wave but do not report the potential impact on health or the impact on the isolated days from extreme heat. In his opinion, the MOMO is a “very good system for monitoring daily mortality from all causes, which is something that requires a very great effort,” but with regard to mortality due to heat, it could be improved “from environmental epidemiology.” “. Remember, also, that they happen about two years until the National Institute of Statistics (INE) “debugs the causes of mortality and age groups”, so in real time what is known is the trend.
It also clarifies that, for now, MACE, by offering a national image of what is happening and not discriminating by geographic areas, may be offering a overestimated mortality. That is to say, a heat wave causing excess mortality does not affect the entire country at the same time and equally, contrary to what the application reflects.
Tobas also indicates that excess mortality due to heat, something that occurs more in older people and with cardiovascular and respiratory pathologies, is usually related to the deaths from heat stroke, which will be much less: 285 cases registered in Spain between 1990 and 2016, according to an article published this month in Epidemiology .
The new application, according to the researcher, has been well received among scientists in its field, who consider it necessary in a context of climate change and progressive increase in temperatures and also very useful due to the possibility it offers of being able to take into account the historical evolution.
How is mortality calculated in the new app?
In the application, the mortality attributable to moderate heat “It is calculated as the sum of the contributions of the days of summer 2023 with temperatures between the temperature of minimum mortality as a counterfactual reference and the 95th percentile of the temperature distribution between June and September during the last ten years.”
The mortality attributable to extreme heat, “as the sum of the contributions of days above the 95th percentile.” And the mortality attributable to excessive heatwhich is considered as a part of extreme heat, “as the sum of the contributions of days above the 95th percentile as a counterfactual reference.”
The definition of the extreme heat threshold as the 95th percentile of the temperature distribution between June and September during the last ten years is based “on the similarity with the definition of the reference thresholds of impact on health due to high temperatures of the National Plan for Preventive Actions of the Effects of Excess Temperatures of the Ministry of Health”.
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