More than 11,000 people died in Spain and 61,000 throughout Europe due to the heat in the summer of 2022, according to research by the Global Health Institute of Barcelona (ISGlobal). Its authors warn that the current measures to protect the population from high temperatures are insufficient.
81% of deaths triggered by the heat in Spain last summer were registered among people over eighty years old, who constitute the age group most vulnerable to high temperatures. But there were also 796 deaths (7% of the total) of people under 65. People with cardiovascular or respiratory diseases and those who are socially isolated are at the highest risk of dying during a heat wave, notes the study, published yesterday in Nature Medicine.
“More awareness is needed about the risks associated with heat”, declares Joan Ballester, specialist in the relationship between climate and health at ISGlobal, who led the research. “Many people with fragile health die in the summer without being aware that the factor that has triggered the death is the heat”.
The 11,324 deaths attributed to the heat in Spain in 2022 exceed the annual 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 where there are more deaths from the heat, states the study, based on Eurostat data of 543 million inhabitants of thirty-five countries. “Mortality also increases when it’s cold, but we don’t see an opposite pattern with higher figures in northern countries; the Scandinavian countries are better prepared for the cold than the Mediterranean countries for the heat”, notes Ballester.
Spain was the third European country with the highest mortality due to heat in 2022 (with 237 deaths per million inhabitants), only behind Italy (295) and Greece (280).
In absolute numbers, it was the second country with the most deaths (11,324), after Italy (18,010).
One in five deaths recorded in Europe were concentrated in the week of July 18 to 24, coinciding with the most intense heat wave.
Although the summer of 2022 was the hottest recorded so far in Europe, “the temperatures were not exceptional, in the sense that they could have been predicted”, since they continued the same trend of increasing temperatures from last ten years, researchers point to Nature Medicine. “Our results suggest that adaptation efforts have been insufficient [and] highlight the urgent need to reassess and strengthen strategies.”
If no new measures to adapt to rising temperatures are 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 research, in which nine scientific institutions from Spain, France and Switzerland have participated.
The new measures “should start with those that can achieve a greater effect in a faster and more affordable way”, says Ballester. “For example, one could take a census of people most vulnerable to heat, such as elderly people living alone, and actively monitor them during periods of extreme heat.”
Unlike younger and healthier people who can take refuge in cool places during heat waves, people with mobility difficulties are more vulnerable to high temperatures.
In this same line, Ballester proposes to improve warning systems against heat waves. Instead of being based solely on weather criteria as until now, they could be done in a more personalized way depending on the age, sex, state of health or place of residence of the citizens.
In the longer term, the researcher proposes architectural and urban planning actions to adapt homes and cities to the warming resulting from climate change.
Europe, researchers recall, is the continent where thermometers have risen the most since the pre-industrial era. The increase in temperatures has been almost a degree higher in Europe than in the world as a whole.
