United States: As temperatures reach record levels in many parts of the US this week, emergency rooms are seeing a surge of patients as a more significant number of patients are getting sicker because their bodies fail to tolerate heat.
Rising Heat deaths
Heat deaths clearly have been rising for years in the United States. My new analysis for a study in the medical journal JAMA shows that there were at least 21,518 heat deaths between 1999 and 2023, a 117 percent increase.
However, there has been an upward trend since two thousand and sixteen, according to the study done by the researchers. Altogether, and on average, the differences between heat-related deaths in the summer were equal to one less.
It was at 4 percent from 1999 to 2016 and then raised by 16.8 percent per year.
Heat-related deaths are undercounted
As per the experts, heat-related deaths are undercounted.
According to Dr. Jeffrey Howard, the study co-author and an associate professor of public health at the University of Texas at San Antonio, “The way that death certificates are filled out, the people that are filling them out don’t always know the full circumstances that led to the death. So we’re only probably scratching the surface of it,” as CNN Health reported.
“The fact that you see this trend tells me that there are probably many more deaths that we just are unable to measure,” he added.
What more have the experts stated?
However, there is growing awareness of the impact it will have on health by some physicians, said Dr. Catharina Giudice, an emergency physician, a climate change and human health fellow at Harvard University, who did not participate in the research.
Giudice said, “When you’re filling out a death certificate, you make your best interpretation with the available information you have, and I think the more people are aware of climate change-related mortality.”
“So there may be some bias of increasing awareness over time,” owing to the recent trend, as she continued.
Rising emergency treatment cases
More people will probably continue requiring emergency treatment for heat-related illnesses. About 55 percent of the world’s population is likely to experience hazardous heat for multiple weeks per year by this century’s end, a study conducted in 2022 shows.
This turns even simple actions like going for a walk in the Grand Canyon, running in gym class, or even sitting on the couch without a fan fatal.