France recorded an excess of mortality of more than 2,800 people during heat waves, according to public health data France published Monday.
by Delphine Roucaute
This is the deadliest scorching episode since 2003. According to public health calculations France (SPF) published Monday, November 21, an excess of mortality of 2,816 people compared to the last five years has been calculated During the three heat wave episodes that marked the summer of 2022 in France, the second hottest summer observed in France since the beginning of the 20th e century.
“This is a very large number of deaths, especially since it was recorded over a very short period, in just 44 days, that is to say over the periods from June 14 to 22 , from July 9 to 27 and from July 27 to August 14 “, underlines Guillaume Boulanger, head of the quality unit of living environments and work and health of populations in SPF. In total, this is an excess mortality of + 16.7 % compared to the previous five years.
This figure may seem much lower than the first estimates established in early September by the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE), which calculated an excess of mortality of more than 11,000 people from the beginning of June to mid- august. This is because here SPF is based on the strict definition of the heat wave, a period of at least three days during which the temperature, at night and day, exceeds the thresholds fixed by department. But taking into account the entire summer period, from 1 er June to September 15, SPF reaches the same excess mortality estimates, all causes combined: up to 10,420 additional deaths In metropolitan France, without the specifically knowing the share of heat consecutive to heat. “A part of this excess of summer mortality is probably due to an exposure of the population at temperatures not reaching the heat wave”, note spf.
“finer methodology”
“The assessment of 2,816 dead will therefore likely increase,” explains Sébastien Denys, health-environment-environment-work director at SPF. A complementary work “requiring a finer methodology” will be published, in early 2023, to assess the excess of mortality linked to the heat wave, over the whole of summer, this time. In any case, this shows that “below the heat wave thresholds there are already risks related to heat”, insists Guillaume Boulanger.
Deaths are largely counting (80 %) among people over 75, with a decreasing effect depending on age. But the whole population is affected by heat. During the summer, 69 departments experienced at least one heat wave, or 78 % of the metropolitan population. Out of 17,000 emergencies, mainly for dehydration, 10,000 people were then hospitalized.
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