- 47.690 heat deaths in Europe last year
47,690 people are estimated to have died from high temperatures in 2023 in Europe, the warmest year on record globally. A modeling study led by the "Barcelona Institute for Global Health" and published in the journal "Nature Medicine" reports this, but also notes that there appears to have been an adaptation to heat.
The team used mortality data from Eurostat covering 96 million deaths to estimate heat-related mortality in 2023 for 823 regions in 35 European countries. According to these estimates, there were 47,690 heat-related deaths in Europe last year, the second highest mortality rate since such calculations began in 2015, with the highest rate recorded in 2022.
Heatwaves up to 44 degrees Celsius
More than half of the recorded heat deaths occurred during heatwaves between mid-July and August 2023. During this time, temperatures of 44 degrees Celsius were recorded in Sicily, while wildfires raged in Greece, resulting in several deaths.
Taking population size into account, the research group found that the countries with the highest heat-related mortality rates are in Southern Europe: Greece (393 deaths per million inhabitants), Bulgaria (229), Italy (209), and Spain (175) occupy the top four spots in the estimate. In Germany, this rate was 76 deaths per million inhabitants in 2023.
Women and older people particularly at risk
In absolute numbers, the research group estimates that there were around 12,750 heat deaths in Italy in 2023, followed by 8,352 in Spain and 6,376 in Germany. Here, as in almost all the countries studied, significantly more women than men died from the effects of heat, with older people being particularly vulnerable overall.
The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) had determined a figure of 3,200 heat deaths in Germany for 2023. The numbers from the RKI and the Barcelona team differed for 2022 as well. An RKI expert had explained that the difference is due, among other things, to different definitions of "heat".
The team led by Elisa Gallo from Barcelona also modeled the impact of heat-related mortality without climate adaptation measures. These include improvements in health care, social protection, and lifestyle, progress in workplace health and building conditions, increased risk awareness, and more effective communication and early warning strategies.
Effective climate adaptation measures reduce mortality
As the research team estimates, without these measures, heat-related mortality in the general population could have been around 80 percent higher in 2023, and over 100 percent higher in the population aged 80 and above. "Our results show that there have been societal adaptation processes to high temperatures this century that have dramatically reduced heat-related susceptibility and mortality burden of recent summers, particularly among the elderly," lead author Gallo is quoted as saying in a statement.
To that end, the minimum mortality temperature – the optimal temperature with the lowest risk of death – has gradually increased on average across the continent since the year 2000, according to Gallo, from 15 degrees Celsius between 2000 and 2004 to 17.7 degrees Celsius between 2015 and 2019: "This suggests that we are less heat-sensitive than at the beginning of the century, which is likely due to general socio-economic progress, improvement in individual behavior, and public health measures such as the heat prevention plans implemented after the record summer of 2003."
Recently, the same research group also introduced "Forecaster.health", an online early warning system that provides predictions of mortality risk associated with cold and heat by gender and age for 580 regions in 31 European countries. The free tool provides predictions up to 15 days in advance and is based not only on meteorological data but also incorporates epidemiological models.
The study published in "Nature Medicine" highlighted the importance of implementing health and safety measures, as without these, heat-related mortality could have been significantly higher in 2023. According to the research, effective climate adaptation measures, such as improvements in healthcare and public health measures, could have reduced heat-related mortality by up to 80% in the general population and over 100% in the elderly population.
