Heatwaves were cause of more than 6,700 deaths in Spain during summer last year claim

The summer of 2024 was the warmest on record in Europe, with a serious impact on health. A study published in Nature Medicine, led by the Instituto de Salud Global de Barcelona (ISGlobal), estimated that more than 62,700 people died on the continent due to extreme heat between 1 June and 30 September.

According to the report, the number of heat-related deaths in Spain last year was 6,743, making it the country with the second highest heat-related mortality, behind only Italy (19,038). Despite the magnitude of the data, mortality was almost 50% lower than in 2022 (12,135 deaths), which was a hotter summer for Spain.

The analysis covered 654 regions in 32 European countries. After Spain, the countries with the most heat-related deaths were Germany (6,282), Greece (5,980) and Romania (4,943). In total, the study estimates more than 181,000 deaths in Europe in the summers of 2022, 2023 and 2024, two thirds of them concentrated in the south of the continent.

Mortality was unevenly impacted by age and sex: in 2024, there were 46.7% more deaths among women than among men, while mortality among those over-75s was more than three times higher than in the rest of the population.

The summer of 2024 in Spain was less extreme than those of 2022 and 2023, which explains the reduction in mortality attributed to heat. Even so, the figures still place Spain among the most affected countries in Europe, given its geographical position and the vulnerability of the Mediterranean Sea in the face of the climate crisis.

"Europe is the fastest warming continent, at twice the global average. Within Europe, the Mediterranean has established itself as a climate change hotspot, with an increasing impact on health," said Tomáš Janoš, ISGlobal researcher and first author of the study.

In addition to quantifying the impact of heatwaves, the study evaluated the Forecaster.health tool - a forecasting system that converts weather data into region- and population-specific health alerts. According to the authors of the study, this platform makes it possible to anticipate extreme heat-related mortality risks up to a week in advance.

"The magnitude of these figures shows us that it is necessary to boost adaptation strategies, including a new generation of life-saving health warning systems for the most vulnerable populations," says Joan Ballester Claramunt, principal investigator of the European EARLY-ADAPT project and senior author of the study.

Epidemiologist Usama Bilal from Drexel University (USA) believes that the work "allows the creation of more precise alerts that take into account the context of each area - 35C in Asturias is not the same as 35C in Seville".

Actuary and PhD in Public Health Jesús Adrián Álvarez says that "these studies are a reminder of the true human cost of climate change " and that the key is "how health systems manage to adapt to prevent avoidable deaths in future heatwaves".