Both heat and cold can result in excess deaths. Gasparrini et al. looked at the causes of death in England and Wales over a 20-year period (2000-2019). They found there were 791 deaths attributable to heat and 60,573 attributable to cold.
The authors write “Our analysis indicates that the excess in mortality attributable to cold was almost two orders of magnitude higher than the excess in mortality attributable to heat.”
www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2542519622001383
DB2
Gasparrini et al. looked at the causes of death in Gasparrini et al. looked at the causes of death in England and Wales over a 20-year period (2000-2019). They found there were 791 deaths attributable to heat and 60,573 attributable to cold. over a 20-year period (2000-2019). They found there were 791 deaths attributable to heat and 60,573 attributable to cold.
Up until very recently, it rarely got very hot in England and Wales.
intercst
Normal seasonal variation, like the way the price of gas soars near Memorial Day, then falls off after the 4th of July?
Steve
Gasparrini et al. looked at the causes of death in England and Wales over a 20-year period (2000-2019). They found there were 791 deaths attributable to heat and 60,573 attributable to cold. over a 20-year period (2000-2019). They found there were 791 deaths attributable to heat and 60,573 attributable to cold.
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Up until very recently, it rarely got very hot in England and Wales.
Interestingly, the mortality curve is U-shaped and is seen all over the world, including the tropics. The low-mortality part of the curve tends to be around what is ‘normal’ for that region.
A study in Latin America covering the 2002-15 period found an 8-fold preponderance of cold over heat deaths.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-01872-6
In the city of Pune in India between 2004 and 2012 cold deaths were almost seven times greater than heat-related deaths.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0013935121016054
DB2
When I visited England, many homes did not have central heating. The heaters were coin-operated. The poor might run out of money to heat their homes. That might be why there was much higher excess mortality in the winter months. I don’t know if that is still the case or whether the poor are aided with heating costs as they are in some areas of the U.S.
Plus, the U.K. had very few excess heat days compared with excess cold days.
Wendy
Since 1999, at least 1,400 people — 70 per year — have died of heat-related causes in Texas, second only to Arizona.
When it comes to heat, Texas leads the nation in several grim statistics: summertime electricity disconnections, heat-related work deaths, and infant and toddler deaths in hot cars.
https://stories.usatodaynetwork.com/hostagetoheat/texas-poli…
Jaak
When I visited England, many homes did not have central heating. The heaters were coin-operated.
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Their homes have baseboard/radiator hot water heating systems with fuel oil boilers - not the forced air ducted natural gas heating systems in the USA. Homes do not have coin-operated fuel oil boilers. Only rental homes have coin-operated fuel oil boilers.
Jaak
This study notes that cold or cool weather has negative cardiovascular effects. Excess winter mortality (ECW) is found in countries such as Israel and Brazil.
“While negative health aspects triggered by heat waves will increase due to the climate crisis, it is particularly surprising that even cold temperatures around 10 degrees [50°F] can have significant negative effects on our cardiovascular system even in young people who were part of these studies.
“However, importantly, when only the face was cooled, we saw a very similar increase in blood pressure that was due to a reflex increase in vascular resistance of the skin throughout the whole body.”
DB2
I don’t know if that is still the case
Many homes in the UK are fitted with prepay meters that need to be topped up. Nowadays you might use a card rather than a coin, but the same principle. Often used in areas where people fail to pay their bills so the company can just instantly & automatically cut them off without feeling terribly bad about it.
Masselot et al. looked a mortality records in 854 urban areas in Europe over a 20-year period (2000-2019). They found 20K deaths attributable to heat and 204K deaths attributable to cold, a factor of 10 larger.
Excess mortality attributed to heat and cold: a health impact assessment study in 854 cities in Europe
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(23)00023-2/fulltext
DB2
I’m sure that has nothing to do with the fact that Europe is quite far north. IIRC, the majority of Europe is to the north of New York City. There just aren’t that many places in Europe that get hot enough to have problems with heat. But a whole lot of places the get really cold in the winter.
—Peter
That is true. As noted upstream, excess winter mortality has been found around the world, places such as Israel, Kuwait, India, Australia and Brazil. A 2015 paper found that among 74 million deaths in 13 countries cold killed 18x as many people as heat (7.3% as opposed to 0.4%).
Mortality risk attributable to high and low ambient temperature: a multicountry observational study
https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(14)62114-0.pdf
DB2
