Living Well: Tracking Heat-Related Deaths Nationwide

Climate change is making our summers hotter – and increasingly deadly. A climate central analysis shows that several parts of the country spent more than half of their summer feeling heat amplified by climate change.

Places like Puerto Rico, south Florida, Arizona, Las Vegas, Texas, and even Hawaii are especially feeling that heat. Even here at home, we’ve seen several days with temperatures in the 90’s. And that extreme heat is becoming increasingly deadly.

In today’s Living Well, National Climate Reporter Chase Cain explains why we still don’t know the full impact of heat across the U.S.

Some call extreme heat the “Invisible killer” or “Silent killer” because it doesn’t have the shock of a hurricane, tornado, or flood.

The impact of heat on our health is a bit of a paradox because we know it’s the number one weather and climate-related cause of death in the U.S., but we don’t know just how deadly it is.

For example, official records count roughly 2,300 heat-related deaths last year, with more than three-fourths of them from these six states: California, Nevada, Arizona, Texas, Florida, and Louisiana.

But a study from Texas A&M projects the actual number could be 4x greater, with possibly 11,000 Americans dying from extreme heat last year.

Dr. Guppy, a pulmonologist at the University of Washington explains that heat can cause or trigger so many different health problems, that it can be challenging for doctors to untangle the root cause.