Interactive map reveals Europe's deadliest heatwave hotspots

Scientists have created an interactive map of Europe showing the levels of life-threatening risks due to extreme heat. Not everyone is equally at risk.

Four people died this week in Italy due to extreme heat, with temperatures reaching 38 degrees Celsius in Rome. Last month, unusually hot weather claimed the lives of six tourists in Greece, and experts predict another record-hot year due to climate change. However, assessing how dangerous heatwaves are can be challenging.

The new tool aims to address this gap by predicting the likelihood of death during heatwaves in different parts of Europe. The data is based on age and gender. Launched on 16 July, forecaster.health is the first pan-European, publicly accessible platform for predicting the actual mortality risk related to temperatures for various demographic groups.

Around 70,000 people died from heat-related causes in the summer of 2022 in Europe, report scientists from the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal). The same team used past mortality data and combined it with weather forecasts to create a first-of-its-kind tool designed to help save lives.

Joan Ballester Claramunt, a scientist at ISGlobal, noted:

"Until now, temperature warnings have been solely based on the physical information of weather forecasts, and therefore, they ignore the differences in vulnerability to heat and cold among population groups. Our system changes this paradigm by shifting the focus from meteorology to epidemiology and the social determinants of vulnerability to the environmental factors."

The scientists' system from Barcelona changes this paradigm, shifting the focus from meteorology to epidemiology – the study of diseases and other public health issues.

Many factors affect our vulnerability to adverse heat effects, including gender and age. Marcos Quijal-Zamorano, a researcher at ISGlobal and one of the authors of the system, explained:

"We know that vulnerability to heat is influenced by a number of factors, including sex and age. We know, for example, that women are more susceptible to heat than men, and that the risk of death for both heat and cold increases with age. For that reason, our tool separately fits epidemiological models for each sex and age group, which allows us to issue independent warnings accounting for the real impacts on the population."

In turn, Ballester told Euronews Green: "I'm not 100 per cent sure that all old women are aware that they have more risk than men. And maybe if they knew it, they might change things."

The scientist explained that many factors behind this phenomenon exist. Socio-economic conditions provide some answers. Women typically have lower salaries and, therefore, have fewer resources, such as air conditioning, to protect themselves. They are also more likely to be widows, making it more likely they live alone and are isolated from help.