Cold temperatures are not nearly as deadly as heat, with around 2% of all deaths nationwide related to heat, according to new research from the University of Technology Sydney.
Cold temperatures are not nearly as deadly as heat, with around 2% of all deaths nationwide related to heat, according to new research from the University of Technology Sydney.
The study, published today in the journal Climatic Change, reveals that in warmer regions of Australia up to 9% of deaths were related to heat, with the elderly facing the greatest risk. Cold weather had a much smaller impact (-0.4% nationwide) except in the coldest climate zone, where 3.6% of deaths could be linked to cold temperatures.
“Accurately measuring temperature-related mortality is an important step towards understanding the impacts of climate change, particularly across different climate zones,” says study author Dr Thomas Longden, from the UTS Centre for Health Economics Research and Evaluation.
The study is the first to use a national data set of mortality records to calculate the number of deaths linked to heat and cold in Australia. A key part of the analysis was estimating temperature-related deaths across six climate zones.
Read more at University of Technology Sydney
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