2024-08-12 15:00:33
Last year, around 48,000 people died as a result of the heat in Europe alone. Researchers say the number of deaths could have been even higher – but prevention prevented this. However, one area is also affected.
Experts estimate that more than 47,000 people will have died in Europe as a result of high temperatures in 2023, the world’s hottest year since records began. A matching model study led by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal) appear Currently in the journal “Natural Medicine”. In it, the international research team also reports that adaptation to rising temperatures has clearly occurred.
The team led by Elisa Gallo and Joan Ballester from ISGlobal analyzed mortality data from the European Statistical Office (Eurostat) on more than 96 million deaths to estimate the heat-related mortality burden in 2023 for 823 regions in the 35 European countries. According to these statistics, heat-related deaths were 47,690 in Europe last year. This is the second highest number in the statistical period since 2015, with a maximum of 60,000 victims for 2022.
Considering the population, the research team found that the countries with the highest mortality rates are located in southern Europe: Greece (393 deaths per million inhabitants), Bulgaria (229) , Italy (209) and Spain (175) won. the top four places are calculated, followed by Cyprus (167) and Portugal (136). The summer death rate for Germany is 76 deaths per million inhabitants.
In the summer of 2023, there were four major events of extreme heat and high mortality, the research team notes. And in absolute numbers, it estimates the number of summer deaths for 2023 at just under 12,750 in Italy, followed by 8,352 in Spain and 6,376 in Germany. In this country – as in almost all the countries examined – significantly more women than men die as a result of the heat, from which the elderly in particular suffer.
The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) has estimated the number of 3,200 summer deaths in Germany by 2023. The numbers from the RKI and the Barcelona group have already differed for 2022. An RKI expert explained that the difference is, among other things, to with different meanings to “summer”.
The team also modeled the effects of heat-related mortality without climate change measures. These include, for example, improvements in health care, social security and lifestyle, improvements in work and physical health, increased risk awareness and more effective communication and early warning systems.
“Less susceptible to heat than at the turn of the century”
The research team estimates that without these measures, heat-related deaths in 2023 could be 80 percent higher in the general population and more than 100 percent higher in the population age 80 and older. “Our results show that there have been social adaptation strategies to higher temperatures this century that have reduced the heat-related injury and death burden of recent summers, especially among older adults. ,” said the author Gallo in a speech.
This is consistent with the fact that the minimum temperature – the optimal temperature with the lowest risk of death – has increased on average across the continent since 2000, Gallo said, from 15 degrees Celsius in 2000 to 2004 to 17.7 degrees Celsius. Period 2015 to 2019: “This suggests that we are less vulnerable to heat than at the beginning of the century, possibly due to the improvement of the general economy, improvements in individual behavior and public health measures such as heat prevention programs done after the download. The summer of 2003 was exceptional. ”
At that time, many European countries will not be able to deal with the health consequences of an exceptional summer, the study said. More than 70,000 deaths were reported in 2003.
More recently, the same research group has also “forecast.health” presented an online early warning system that provides forecasts of the risk of death associated with cold and heat by gender and age for 580 regions in 31 European countries. The free tool provides forecasts up to 15 days ahead and is not only based on meteorological data, but also takes epidemiological models into account.
stop/come
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