By Alison Withers
COPENHAGEN (Reuters) -More than 62,700 people died in Europe from heat-related causes in 2024, according to research published in Nature Medicine on Monday, with women and the elderly representing the largest part of the death toll.
Researchers at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health, known as ISGlobal, who obtained daily mortality records from 32 European countries, estimated over 181,000 people died from heat-related complications over the summer months of 2022 to 2024.
Between June 1 and September 30, 2024, the mortality rate rose by 23% from the same period a year earlier, although the number of deaths was still just below the 67,900 deaths recorded in 2022, the first year of the study.
“This number is saying to us that we should start adapting our populations,” said Tomás Janos, the lead author of the study.
HOTTEST SUMMER ON RECORD IN EUROPE
The summer of 2024 was the hottest on record in Europe, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.
Two-thirds of the estimated deaths occurred in Southern Europe. Italy, which has Europe’s largest population of elderly proportionally, and experienced soaring temperatures all three summers, had the highest absolute death toll each summer.
Though summer 2025 was not part of the study, the Italian Society for Emergency Medicine said emergency room admissions rose by up to 20% in certain regions during peak temperatures this year, indicating that the country is still grappling with heat risk for the elderly.
“Patients who were already frail and suffering multiple ailments required more hospital care, which increased pressure on hospital services, as happens during periods of influenza surges,” said Alessandro Riccardi, president of SIMEU, told Reuters.
European health authorities increasingly provide heat warnings when temperatures are expected to meet official definitions of a heatwave that vary from country to country.
Janos, however, said heat-related mortality is noticeable even at temperatures as low as 24 degrees Celsius (75.2°F) for certain populations in specific locations.
PROTECTION FROM HEAT SHOULD BE ‘AN ESSENTIAL MEDICINE’
Gerardo Sanchez, an official at the European Environment Agency, who is part of the expert group revising the World Health Organization’s heat health guidelines, said data on heat-related deaths needed to be matched by long-term investment to improve Europe’s built infrastructure and access to cooling.
“Protection from heat needs to be treated as an essential medicine for those that need it the most,” Sanchez told Reuters.
ISGlobal said it had undercounted heat deaths for 2022 and 2023, which had been calculated on weekly, not daily, records, and revised their previous estimates slightly upwards.
(Reporting by Alison Withers; editing by Barbara Lewis)
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