Climate change could cause more deaths in London and southeast England, according to a new study.
Researchers from the Imperial College London predict that the odds of dying from cardiovascular or respiratory causes will increase by my more than 10 percent for every 1 C degree rise in temperature. In their study, they found that districts in the far north were much more resilient, seeing no increase in deaths at equivalent temperatures, according to a press release.
Their findings appear in Nature Climate Change.
"It's well known that warm weather can increase the risk of cardiovascular and respiratory deaths, especially in elderly people," James Bennett, lead author of the study, said in a statement. "Climate change is expected to raise average temperatures and increase temperature variability, so we can expect it to have effects on mortality even in countries like the UK with a temperate climate."
For the study, scientists looked at temperature records and mortality figures for 2001 to 2010 to find out which districts in England and Wales experience the biggest effects from warm temperatures.
Based on their findings, across England and Wales as a whole, a summer that is 2C warmer than average would be expected to cause around 1,550 extra deaths. More than half of those deaths would be in people aged over 85, and 62 percent would be in women. Researchers said the extra deaths would be distributed unevenly, with 95 out of 376 districts accounting for half of all deaths.
The effects of warm temperature were similar in urban and rural districts. The most vulnerable districts included deprived districts in London such as Hackney and Tower Hamlets, with the odds of dying more than doubling on very hot days like those of August 2003, according to a press release.
"The reasons for the uneven distribution of deaths in warm weather need to be studied," Professor Majid Ezzati, lead researcher of the study, said in a statement. "It might be due to more vulnerable individuals being concentrated in some areas, or it might be related to differences at the community level, like quality of healthcare, that require government action."
She added that while climate change is a global phenomenon, resilience and vulnerability to its effects are highly local.
"Many things can be done at the local level to reduce the impact of warm spells, like alerting the public and planning for emergency services. Detailed information about which communities are most at risk from high temperatures can help to inform these strategies," she said.
The researchers received funding from the Medical Research Council, Public Health England, and the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Imperial Biomedical Research Centre.
