Record year 2023 calls for more than 47,000 heat deaths
Last year was the warmest on record. High temperatures have significant health impacts on humans, with tens of thousands dying from heat in Europe alone. The number could have been much higher.
More than 47,000 people worldwide died from heat-related causes in 2023, the warmest year on record, according to estimates by the "Barcelona Institute for Global Health" published in "Nature Medicine". However, the study also suggests that societies have adapted to the heat.
The team used mortality data from Eurostat for 96 million deaths to estimate heat-related deaths in 823 regions across 35 European countries in 2023. According to these estimates, there were 47,690 heat-related deaths in Europe last year, the second-highest rate since records began in 2015, with the highest rate in 2022.
Considering population size, the countries with the highest heat-related death rates were in Southern Europe: Greece (393 deaths per million inhabitants), Bulgaria (229), Italy (209), and Spain (175) topped the list. In Germany, this rate was 76 deaths per million inhabitants in 2023.
RKI has different numbers
In absolute numbers, the research group estimates that there were around 12,750 heat-related deaths in Italy in 2023, followed by 8,352 in Spain and 6,376 in Germany. Here, as in most countries studied, significantly more women than men died from heat-related causes, with the elderly being particularly vulnerable.
The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) reported 3,200 heat-related deaths in Germany in 2023. The numbers from the RKI and the Barcelona team differed for 2022 as well. An RKI expert explained that the difference is due, among other things, to different definitions of "heat".
The Barcelona team, led by Elisa Gallo, also modeled the impact of heat-related deaths without climate adaptation measures. These include improvements in health care, social protection, lifestyle, workplace health, building conditions, risk awareness, and communication and early warning strategies.
Team finds: There have been adaptations
The research team estimates that without these measures, heat-related deaths in the general population could have been 80% higher in 2023, and over 100% higher in the population aged 80 and above. "Our results show that there have been societal adaptations to high temperatures this century that have dramatically reduced heat-related vulnerability and mortality, particularly among the elderly," said lead author Gallo 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 in the period 2000 to 2004 to 17.7 degrees Celsius in the period 2015 to 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 those implemented after the record summer of 2003."
Recently, the same research group also introduced "Forecaster.health", an online early warning system that provides mortality risk forecasts related to cold and heat for 580 regions in 31 European countries, stratified by gender and age. This free tool provides forecasts up to 15 days in advance and is based not only on meteorological data but also incorporates epidemiological models.
The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) is a German institution that provides public health-related data and analyses. The RKI reported 3,200 heat-related deaths in Germany in 2023, which is less than the estimates provided by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health.
