U.S. Deaths Tied to Extreme Temps May Double, Triple by Mid-21st Century

Deaths related to extreme temperatures in the U.S. were projected to increase substantially by the mid-21st century, with Black and Hispanic adults projected to disproportionately be affected by this increase, according to a cross-sectional study in JAMA Network Open.

In this video interview, Sameed Khatana, MD, MPH, of the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine in Philadelphia, discusses the study, which used two greenhouse gas emissions scenarios to project the number of extreme temperature-related deaths in the contiguous U.S.

The following is a transcript of his remarks:

Today, I’ll be discussing our recently published paper in JAMA Network Open looking at the projected number of extreme temperature-associated deaths in the United States.

We know that extremes of temperature are associated with adverse health effects, and some of our previous studies have shown that. That’s true for both extremely hot temperatures as well as extremely low temperatures. We also know that due to climate change, the number of extreme heat events is increasing, while the number of extreme cold days is decreasing.

So the objective of this study was to see how these changes will lead to overall changes in the burden of extreme temperature-associated deaths in the United States between now and the middle part of the 21st century.

Our main findings were that currently approximately 8,000 deaths a year are associated with extreme temperatures. That’s both extremely hot days and extremely cold days, with the majority of those deaths associated with extremely cold days.

But what we found was that with an increase in the number of extreme heat days and a decrease in the number of extremely cold days, the number of deaths associated with extremely cold days is projected to decline. That’s outweighed by the number of deaths associated with extreme heat that’s projected to increase.

What we estimated was that by the middle part of the 21st century, the number of deaths associated with extreme temperatures is expected to more than double under a lower greenhouse gas emissions increase scenario, from 8,000 to 19,000 deaths a year. And under a higher emissions increase scenario, this is expected to more than triple to approximately 26,000 deaths per year.

It’s very important to understand what climate change is doing to the health of our society. Climate change is impacting every aspect of human society, whether it’s economic factors, social factors, and obviously health factors, which is what we’re interested in here. So I think it’s very important for both clinicians, people who take care of patients, and the public in general, but also policymakers, to understand what is going to be the burden on public health of climate change. And this will help them devise strategies hopefully to mitigate that impact.

One other thing that we found was that this increase in mortality was disproportionately affecting certain locations and certain populations. We saw that there was a greater increase in metropolitan areas compared to non-metropolitan areas, and that the increase was greater amongst older adults, as well as adults who identified as being Hispanic or non-Hispanic Black adults. So I think it’s also important to highlight that this increase will disproportionately impact certain communities.

And then I think these findings will be helpful for policymakers when they’re thinking about the kinds of strategies that they need to try and mitigate these increases.

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