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Health: Heat exposure risk increasing for older adults
Up to 246 million more older adults around the world are projected to be exposed to dangerous acute heat by the year 2050 — with those living in Asia and Africa experiencing the most severe effects — suggests a Nature Communications paper. The findings may help to inform regional heat risk assessments and public health decision-making.
The global population is ageing at an unprecedented rate. The number of people aged over 60 years is expected to double to nearly 2.1 billion people by 2050, with more than two-thirds residing in lower- and middle-income countries where climate change-driven extreme events are especially likely. Increases in the intensity, duration, and frequency of heat spells pose direct threats to physical health, with especially severe consequences for older adults, given their heightened susceptibility to hyperthermia and common health conditions worsened by heat exposure. Despite extensive research confirming the individual-level effects of extreme heat on older adults’ health and mortality risk, older adults’ population-level heat exposure has received less attention.
Giacomo Falchetta and colleagues quantified chronic exposure to high average temperatures, and the frequency and intensity of acute exposure to extreme high temperatures, for different age groups around the world. They found that by 2050, more than 23% of the global population aged over 69 years will live in climates with acute heat exposure greater than the critical threshold of 37.5°C (99.5°F), compared with 14% in 2020. The authors also found that an increase of 177–246 million older adults may be exposed to dangerous acute heat. Additionally, the effects are projected to be the most severe in Asia and Africa, which may also have the lowest adaptive capacities.
The authors suggest that areas with ageing populations and rising heat exposures are likely to face considerable demands for social and health services, requiring novel policy interventions. The findings may be useful for health-related assessments and climate change adaptation-planning.
