Moderately Cold Temperatures Responsible for More Premature Deaths
/A new study shows that cold temperatures tend to cause more premature deaths than warmer ones. Researchers wanted to have a clearer picture on the health effects between Cold temperatures cause more premature deaths than warmer ones
Researchers want to have a clearer picture on the health effects between the relationship of cold and heat. They examined deaths across 384 locations in 13 countries. It was the largest international study done on the subject to date.
The countries included in the study were:
- Australia
- Brazil
- Canada
- China
- Italy
- Japan
- South Korea
- Spain
- Sweden
- Taiwan
- Thailand
- UK
- USA
Across all countries, cold weather killed 20 times as many people as hot weather. Countries ranged in climates from cold to subtropical.
Researchers also integrated data such as:
- Daily average temps
- Death rates
- Confounding variables (humidity, air pollution)
- Analyzed over 74 million deaths from 1985-2012
Research found that most weather-related deaths were not associated with extreme weather like polar vortexes or heat waves. Instead the results concluded around more moderately cold days.
Extreme temperature deaths made up only 1% of the deaths in the countries studied. Moderately poor temperature conditions were responsible for about 7% of deaths. Most of the deaths related to moderately poor temperatures were related to moderately cold conditions.
The study author pointed out: “We’re seeing that moderate days of cold or heat are producing more deaths than extreme weather."
Authors also noted a period of high heat often attracted the most concern and is often assume that extreme weather causes the majority of deaths. This mostly stemmed from previous research which pointed at focusing on the effects of extreme heat waves.
An average across the countries studied: 7.7% of deaths are caused by non-optimal temperatures.
- China came in at the highest with 11%
- Brazil came near the lowest with only 3.5%
- Canada was significant: 5% of deaths were attributed to cold weather
They found that moderately cold weather killed nine times as many people as hot weather. These findings may push public health officials to understand the impact of moderately cold weather when creating policies aimed at lowering the health risks posed by weather.
Preventive tactics cannot just be focused on extreme weather conditions, as now this study shows moderate temperatures may have an effect as well.
The study came from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and was published in British medical journal, the Lancet.