Since 2014, between 30,000 and 35,000 people have died in the summer in France due to the effects of heat, the public health agency estimated this Friday, stressing that this mortality does not only affect periods of heat waves.
“It should be noted that a large part, one third, refers to people under 75 years of age,” underlines this study published by Public Health France, one of the first to assess the links between heat and mortality in the country in recent years. years. , in a context marked by the probable effects of global warming.
In fact, recent years have been marked by an increase in the number of heat waves -extremely hot periods-, particularly in 2019 and 2022. Although it is impossible to establish a systematic link between each of these heat waves and the global warming, this undeniably contributes to increasing its frequency.
Over 3,000 more deaths by 2022
The public health agency had already given figures showing high excess mortality during these heat wave episodes. Thus, it had recorded nearly 3,000 excess deaths last summer during the three heat waves.
But his latest work goes further by evaluating the mortality associated with all periods of summer heat and not just the intense peaks of heat waves.
In fact, “general population exposure during hot days outside of heat waves (…) is often perceived as not presenting a health problem, while also being associated with increased risk of death “said the study.
Three times more heat-related deaths than heat waves alone
In the end, the agency estimates that between 29,612 and 34,975 deaths are attributable to summer heat between 2014 and 2022, or three times more than the deaths linked to heat waves alone.
To arrive at these estimates, the researchers used models that are difficult to summarize. These not only take into account the evolution of temperatures and mortality, but also try to distinguish the role of heat from other factors such as the Covid pandemic in particular.
Source: BFM TV
