Heart deaths caused by extreme heat in the US expected to TRIPLE in coming decades, study warns

Extreme heat caused by climate change could triple the number of deaths from cardiovascular disease within 50 years, a new study warns.

In a scenario where only minimal efforts are made to reduce emissions, heat-related cardiovascular deaths – including from strokes and heart attacks – could increase by as much as 233 percent over the next 13 to 47 years, scientists predict.

Currently, one person dies every 33 seconds in the United States from cardiovascular disease, or diseases of the heart or blood vessels.

The research team behind the study, published in the American Heart Association’s journal Circulation, warned that deaths will become more common among older and black populations.

The study’s lead author, Dr. Sameed Khatana, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and a staff cardiologist at the Philadelphia Veterans Affairs Medical Center, said his research showed the growing role climate will play in our lives as the climate crisis continues .

Researchers predicting cardiovascular disease death rates due to elevated temperatures warn they could more than double in the United States.

The researchers recommend that more aggressive policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions could reduce the number of deaths from extreme heat.

Between 2008 and 2019, extreme heat in the US was linked to 1,651 additional cardiovascular deaths each summer.

How much – and how quickly – greenhouse gas emissions will rise in the coming decades will have a profound effect on extreme heat and people’s health.

The study, conducted by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, previously examined data by county in the US to show the link between a greater number of extreme heat days and an increase in cardiovascular deaths between 2008 and 2017.

This previous data provided a benchmark for the analysis in the new study, which used models of future greenhouse gas emissions and the future socio-economic and demographic composition of the US population to predict the potential impact between 2036 and 2065.

They estimated the excess number of cardiovascular deaths from extreme heat by comparing the predicted number of deaths for each province if extreme heat did not occur with the number of excess deaths if the expected number of heat days occurred.

The analysis found that even if currently proposed emissions reductions were fully implemented and adhered to, the excess cardiovascular deaths from extreme heat would be 162 percent higher by mid-century than the 2008-2019 baseline.

Worse still, if greenhouse gas emissions reductions are not strictly implemented, excess cardiovascular deaths from extreme heat are expected to increase by 233 percent in the coming decades.

Depending on how aggressively green policies are implemented, adults aged 65 and older are expected to experience a 2.9 to 3.5 times greater increase in cardiovascular mortality from extreme heat, compared to people aged 20 to 64.

Non-Hispanic black adults would also be expected to have a 3.8 to 4.6 times greater increase in cardiovascular mortality from extreme heat compared to non-Hispanic white adults, depending on how strict green policies are implemented and enforced.

The expected increase in deaths from extreme heat was not significantly different among adults in other racial or ethnic groups or between genders.

The study’s lead author, Dr. Sameed Khatana, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and a staff cardiologist at the Philadelphia Veterans Affairs Medical Center, said his research showed the growing role climate will play in our lives as the climate crisis continues . .

“Climate change and its many manifestations will play an increasingly important role in the health of communities around the world in the coming decades,” explains Dr. Khatana.

“Climate change is also a health equity issue because it will disproportionately affect certain individuals and populations and could worsen pre-existing health disparities in the US.

‘The size of the percentage increase was surprising.

“This increase not only explains the known link between cardiovascular deaths and extreme heat, but is also influenced by the aging of the population and the proportional increase in the number of people of other races and/or ethnicities in the US.

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Dr. Khatana continued, “Previous studies have suggested that Black residents may have less access to air conditioning; less tree cover; and a higher degree of the ‘urban heat island effect’: built-up areas experience a greater temperature increase than surrounding less developed areas.

‘Living conditions may also play a role in terms of social isolation, which is experienced by some older adults and has previously been associated with a greater risk of death from extreme heat.

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The study’s projections also raise questions about whether infrastructure interventions, such as increasing the number of trees in certain neighborhoods, can reduce the number of people affected by extreme heat in the US – although some European studies suggest this may prove true to be.

As a baseline, the researchers used county-by-county data from 2008-2019 for deaths during the summer months with a primary cause of cardiovascular disease (including heart attack and stroke), and related data such as age, sex, race and gender.

ethnicity of each deceased person and the number of days with extreme heat (days with a maximum heat index of 90°f – 32.22°C – or higher) during the month of death.

The heat index takes into account both heat and humidity because it reflects how the human body experiences high temperatures, with high humidity interfering with the body’s ability to release heat through sweating.