Number of deaths due to heatwave continues to rise, but the actual number is higher
Record heatwave continues
High temperatures continue to prevail in many southern and western states, fueling wildfires and disrupting infrastructure.
Summer 2024 is barely three weeks old, and it has already been a season of record-breaking temperatures. In recent weeks, dozens of high temperatures have been reached from the deserts of California (49 degrees) to the mountains of Maine (37 degrees). And meteorologists are predicting even more extreme heat in the coming weeks.
But it’s not just about a number on the thermometer: The ongoing heat wave in the USA is also claiming lives. At least 30 deaths in the west of the country this month are believed to be related to the extreme heat, according to government authorities and media reports.
The death toll will continue to rise throughout the summer, but experts say the numbers will never be accurate. That’s in part because heat kills in subtle and complex ways.
Extreme heat takes a toll on the human body, meaning the true consequences cannot be measured simply by counting obviously heat-related deaths (such as heat stroke or deaths in hot cars). Heat may not appear on a death certificate even if high temperatures played a role in a person’s death.
Extreme heat kills and maims: Here are some of the victims from across the United States.
“We know that work-related and traffic accidents increase during heat waves,” Bharat Venkat, director of the UCLA Heat Lab, told USA TODAY on Thursday. “If you fall off a ladder at work because it was a particularly hot night and you didn’t have air conditioning and you didn’t sleep well, that doesn’t get counted.”
Researchers have already linked heat to an increase in overall deaths. If the entire U.S. were exposed to extreme heat for just one day, an estimated 154 adults would die, according to a USA TODAY analysis of data from a 2022 study.
Complicating matters further, there is no national standard or data collection for heat deaths, and many counties collect information in different ways.
The final result?
“Heat deaths are absolutely underestimated,” said Venkat.
Who records weather and heat-related deaths?
Reporting weather-related deaths is not an exact science, and current reports are compiled from a variety of sources. The National Weather Service tracks deaths reported by its weather forecast offices, local authorities, and media reports. The information is current and publicly available, but not complete.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is the official source for reporting causes of death and relies on data from death certificates. As such, their information is more comprehensive, but is often not reported until years after the weather event. (But even the CDC’s data is neither precise nor exact, because the completion of death certificates is not standardized across the country.)
Nevertheless, the CDC reported an average of nearly 900 heat-related deaths per year for the five years between 2016 and 2021, twice the five-year average 15 years earlier.
Initial media reports of heat-related deaths often cite local authorities as the source. But local authorities have different procedures for reporting deaths—and they disagree on what counts as a heat-related death.
There is reason to believe that in the more than 3,000 counties that issue death certificates in the United States, the forms are handled differently in each county, says Ashley Ward, director of the Heat Policy Innovation Hub at Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment and Sustainability.
Death certificates have multiple fields for adding information and offer numerous possible codes from a standardized code set for reporting primary and contributing causes of death.
When it comes time to fill out the form and determine whether heat exposure or other environmental factors contributed to the stroke or heart attack, information about the patient’s activities in the days before they were admitted to the hospital or before they died may only be found deep in an emergency room doctor’s notes, according to Ward.
Heat causes other health problems, so what counts as heat death?
Most deaths due to extreme heat are likely an exacerbation of pre-existing conditions, said Sameed Khatana, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and a cardiologist at the Philadelphia VA Medical Center. “Can you say with certainty that this particular heart attack happened because of this heat wave and that it would not have happened if this heat wave had not occurred? That’s a big challenge.”
If heat is a direct cause of death, the question is simpler, Khatana says. “If it is a contributing factor, that is the challenge.”
There is also no way to definitively determine whether someone has died from heat unless the signs are very obvious.
“Autopsies often don’t show heat exposure,” Venkat said. “It’s difficult to measure heat on the body. Did they work in a hot warehouse or were they exposed to high temperatures for a long period of time? An autopsy won’t necessarily show that.”
Heat was historic
This heat wave was historic and record-breaking: More than 50 cities in California and Nevada broke all previous heat records in the first five days of July, according to AccuWeather. In some areas, temperatures were up to 20 degrees above the historical average.
Last week, Las Vegas reached its highest temperature of 120 degrees, beating the previous record by 3 degrees. Palm Springs, California, also reached its highest temperature of 124 degrees last week.
The National Weather Service warns that more temperature records are possible in the West this weekend and heat will continue across the country. “This prolonged heat wave remains extremely dangerous and deadly if not taken seriously,” the weather service said.
“Dozens of record daily temperatures are expected across much of the West through Saturday. Dangerous heat will spread across parts of the central and eastern United States late in the weekend.”
Next week also looks brutal: “Confidence is growing that there will be extremely dangerous heat starting Monday, especially in urban areas in the southeast and on the east coast.”
The heat wave also poses dangers at night.
Higher nighttime temperatures are particularly dangerous for those who do not have access to air conditioning, which is particularly a problem when power outages occur during heatwaves.
“In extreme heat, your organs are under tremendous strain to keep you alive. When temperatures drop at night, your body has a chance to recover,” Venkat said. “If you don’t get that, it’s pretty serious. There’s a certain threshold where your body just can’t take it anymore.”
“If you can’t sleep and your heart, lungs, kidneys and liver don’t get a break, one of those systems is more likely to fail the next day,” Venkat said. “It’s like any mechanical system: If you let it run long enough, it will break down.”
Contributor: Chris Cann, USA TODAY
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