More than 11,000 people died in Spain and 61,000 across Europe due to heat in the summer of 2022, according to research by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal). Its authors warn that the current measures to protect the population from high temperatures are insufficient.
81% of deaths triggered by heat in Spain last summer were registered in people over 80 years of age, who constitute the age group most vulnerable to high temperatures. But 796 deaths (7% of the total) were also registered in those under 65. People with cardiovascular or respiratory diseases, as well as those who are socially isolated, are the ones with the highest risk of dying during a heat wave, notes the study, published today in Nature Medicine.
"There is a lack of awareness about the risks associated with heat," says Joan Ballester, a specialist in the relationship between climate and health at ISGlobal, who led the research. "Many people in fragile health die in summer without being aware that the factor that has triggered death is the heat."
The 11,324 deaths attributed to heat in Spain in 2022 exceed deaths from pancreatic cancer (7,663 in 2021, according to data from the Spanish Society of Medical Oncology), breast (6,614) or prostate (5,889).
The countries of southern Europe are the ones that register the most deaths due to heat, confirms the study, based on Eurostat data from 35 countries with 543 million inhabitants. “Mortality also increases when it is cold, but we do not see an opposite pattern with higher figures in northern countries; the Scandinavian countries are better prepared for the cold than the Mediterranean ones for the heat”, notes Ballester.
Spain was the third European country with the highest mortality from heat in 2022 (with 237 deaths per million inhabitants), only behind Italy (295) and Greece (280).
In absolute numbers, it was the second with the most deaths (11,324), after Italy (18,010).
One in five deaths registered in Europe were concentrated in the week from July 18 to 24, coinciding with the most intense heat wave.
Although the summer of 2022 was the hottest recorded to date in Europe, "the temperatures were not exceptional, in the sense that they could have been foreseen", since they followed the same trend of increasing temperatures of the last ten years, point out the researchers in Nature Medicine. "Our results suggest that adaptation efforts have been insufficient [and] highlight the urgent need to reassess and strengthen strategies."
If new measures to adapt to rising temperatures are not adopted, annual heat deaths in Europe will exceed 68,000 in 2030, 94,000 in 2040 and 120,000 in 2050, according to the authors of the study, in which they have participated. nine scientific institutions from Spain, France and Switzerland.
The new measures "should start with those that can achieve greater effectiveness in a faster and more affordable way," says Ballester. “For example, you could take a census of people most vulnerable to heat, such as older people living alone, and actively monitor them during episodes of extreme heat.”
Unlike younger and healthier people who can seek shelter in cool places during heat waves, people who have difficulty moving around independently are more vulnerable to high temperatures.
Along the same lines, Ballester proposes improving warning systems for heat waves. Instead of being based solely on meteorological criteria as up to now, they could be done in a more personalized way based on the age, sex, state of health or place of residence of citizens.
In the longer term, the researcher proposes architectural and urban actions to adapt homes and cities to warming resulting from climate change.
Europe, the researchers recall, is the continent where the thermometers have risen the most since the pre-industrial era. The rise in temperatures has been almost one degree higher in Europe than in the world as a whole.
Transparency statement: The ISGlobal institute is financed, among other institutions, by Fundación la Caixa, an entity that also provides financing to Big Vang. Decisions about the contents of Big Vang are the sole responsibility of La Vanguardia.
