Media release

From: Springer Nature

Health: Estimating heat-related deaths in Europe in summer 2022

Over 61,000 heat-related deaths may have occurred across Europe as a result of the summer heat waves of 2022, a modeling study published in Nature Medicine suggests. The findings, based on records of over 45 million deaths from 35 countries in Europe, indicate that Italy, Spain and Germany were among the countries that had the largest number of summer heat-related mortalities.

Heat waves pose health threats to high-risk populations worldwide and contribute to increased morbidity and mortality. As global temperatures rise, it is expected that the frequency and intensity of heat waves and hot summers will also increase. The summer of 2022 was the hottest season on record in Europe and was characterized by a series of heat waves. The European Statistical Office, Eurostat, reported high levels of excess mortality for the summer of 2022, but the impact of heat-related mortality has not been quantified across the continent.

Joan Ballester and colleagues used 45,184,044 counts of death from the Eurostat database, which included data from 35 European countries, to quantify the heat-related mortality burden during the summer of 2022. They estimate that between 30 May and 4 September 2022, 61,672 deaths occurred as a result of heat. They indicate that the largest number of summer heat-related mortality events occurred in Italy (18,010 deaths), Spain (11,324 deaths), Germany (8,173 deaths), France (4,807 deaths), the United Kingdom (3,469 deaths) and Greece (3,092 deaths). Relative to population, there were 56% more heat-related deaths among women than men.

The authors conclude that their findings indicate that European heat-surveillance platforms, prevention plans and long-term adaptation strategies may need to be re-evaluated.