[Estimation of heat-related deaths in Germany between 2001 and 2015]

Abstract

Background: During the summers of 2003 and 2015, heat was found to be the cause of a substantial number of deaths in Germany. Until now, estimates for the total number of heat-related deaths were only available regionally in Germany. For the summer of 2003, an analysis for Baden-Württemberg was extrapolated to the whole of Germany.

Objectives: Our analysis tries to prove a stable statistical relationship between heat and mortality and to use this to quantify the number of heat-related deaths in Germany between the years 2001 and 2015.

Materials and methods: By fitting a nonlinear statistical model, we estimated exposure-response curves that describe the influence of heat on the mortality rate. The performance of different indicators for heat stress was compared.

Results: The comparison of the different indicators for heat showed that the weekly mean temperature was most useful to explain the course of the weekly mortality during the summer. The relation between mortality rate and weekly mean temperature varied between age groups and regions in Germany (north, middle, south). The age groups (75-84) and (85+) were most affected by heat. The highest number of heat-related deaths was 7600 (95% CI 5500-9900), found for the summer 2003, followed by 6200 (4000; 8000) in the summer 2006 and 6100 (4000; 8300) in the summer 2015.

Conclusions: We could show that even in weekly data on mortality, a clear influence of heat could be identified. A national surveillance of mortality that allows real-time monitoring would be desirable.

Keywords: Climate change; Excess mortality; Heat stress; Heatwave; Human biometeorology.