From the Harvard School of Public Health , news that an extra 1°C temperature swing in summer will kill the elderly.
Summer temperature variability may increase mortality risk for elderly with chronic disease
Large day-to-day variations in temperature could result in thousands more deaths per year
Boston, MA – New research from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) suggests that seemingly small changes in summer temperature swings—as little as 1°C more than usual—may shorten life expectancy for elderly people with chronic medical conditions, and could result in thousands of additional deaths each year. While previous studies have focused on the short-term effects of heat waves, this is the first study to examine the longer-term effects of climate change on life expectancy.
The study will be published online April 9, 2012 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“The effect of temperature patterns on long-term mortality has not been clear to this point. We found that, independent of heat waves, high day to day variability in summer temperatures shortens life expectancy,” said Antonella Zanobetti, senior research scientist in the Department of Environmental Health at HSPH and lead author of the study. “This variability can be harmful for susceptible people.”
In recent years, scientists have predicted that climate change will not only increase overall world temperatures but will also increase summer temperature variability, particularly in mid-latitude regions such as the mid-Atlantic states of the U.S. and sections of countries such as France, Spain, and Italy. These more volatile temperature swings could pose a major public health problem, the authors note.
Previous studies have confirmed the association between heat waves and higher death rates. But this new research goes a step further. Although heat waves can kill in the short term, the authors say, even minor temperature variations caused by climate change may also increase death rates over time among elderly people with diabetes, heart failure, chronic lung disease, or those who have survived a previous heart attack.
The researchers used Medicare data from 1985 to 2006 to follow the long-term health of 3.7 million chronically ill people over age 65 living in 135 U.S. cities. They evaluated whether mortality among these people was related to variability in summer temperature, allowing for other things that might influence the comparison, such as individual risk factors, winter temperature variance, and ozone levels. They compiled results for individual cities, then pooled the results.
They found that, within each city, years when the summer temperature swings were larger had higher death rates than years with smaller swings. Each 1°C increase in summer temperature variability increased the death rate for elderly with chronic conditions between 2.8% and 4.0%, depending on the condition. Mortality risk increased 4.0% for those with diabetes; 3.8% for those who’d had a previous heart attack; 3.7% for those with chronic lung disease; and 2.8% for those with heart failure. Based on these increases in mortality risk, the researchers estimate that greater summer temperature variability in the U.S. could result in more than 10,000 additional deaths per year.
In addition, the researchers found the mortality risk was 1% to 2% greater for those living in poverty and for African Americans. The risk was 1% to 2% lower for people living in cities with more green space.
Mortality risk was higher in hotter regions, the researchers found. Noting that physiological studies suggest that the elderly and those with chronic conditions have a harder time than others adjusting to extreme heat, they say it’s likely these groups may also be less resilient than others to bigger-than-usual temperature swings.
“People adapt to the usual temperature in their city. That is why we don’t expect higher mortality rates in Miami than in Minneapolis, despite the higher temperatures,” said Joel Schwartz, professor of environmental epidemiology at HSPH and senior author of the paper. “But people do not adapt as well to increased fluctuations around the usual temperature. That finding, combined with the increasing age of the population, the increasing prevalence of chronic conditions such as diabetes, and possible increases in temperature fluctuations due to climate change, means that this public health problem is likely to grow in importance in the future.”
Support for the study was provided by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.
“Summer Temperature Variability and Long-term Survival Among Elderly People with Chronic Disease,” Antonella Zanobetti, Marie S. O’Neill, Carina J. Gronlund, and Joel D. Schwartz, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, online April 9, 2012.
Visit the HSPH website for the latest news, press releases and multimedia offerings.
Harvard School of Public Health (http://www.hsph.harvard.edu ) is dedicated to advancing the public’s health through learning, discovery, and communication. More than 400 faculty members are engaged in teaching and training the 1,000-plus student body in a broad spectrum of disciplines crucial to the health and well being of individuals and populations around the world. Programs and projects range from the molecular biology of AIDS vaccines to the epidemiology of cancer; from risk analysis to violence prevention; from maternal and children’s health to quality of care measurement; from health care management to international health and human rights. For more information on the school visit: http://www.hsph.harvard.edu
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People. . . .you’re missing what you should conclude from the paper!!
What determines the temperature that most people experience? It’s not the sun or clouds or a cold spell. . . . .it’s the thermostats in their houses!!
And what type of thermostat would allow the temperature in these poor people’s houses to vary by 1.8 degrees F or 1 degree C. . . . . .??
That’s right, it’s those new-fangled programmable thermostats that dial the temperature back at night all in the guise of saving energy and polar bears!!
So we need the EPA to immediately ban programmable thermostats, and send out the police to seize all they can find. . . . .
Because otherwise old folks and poor folks and black folks might die. . . . . . . .
/sarcasm off
How many elderly will die when green-mandated higher energy prices prevent them from using air conditioning, whether temperatures rise or not?
dougsherman says:
April 10, 2012 at 4:42 am
“Living causes death”
As someone recenly said to me, “Life is short and no one gets out alive”
A data trawl.
“The researchers used Medicare data from 1985 to 2006 to follow the long-term health of 3.7 million chronically ill people over age 65 living in 135 U.S. cities.”
So they looked exclusively at chronically-ill people.
“Each 1°C increase in summer temperature variability increased the death rate for elderly with chronic conditions between 2.8% and 4.0%, depending on the condition. Mortality risk increased 4.0% for those with diabetes; 3.8% for those who’d had a previous heart attack; 3.7% for those with chronic lung disease; and 2.8% for those with heart failure”
These look suspiciously like the results of a risk ratio analysis done by somebody who doesn’t understand the proper use of statistics. (NO; statistics doesn’t exist to make it easy to get grants or tenure.)
Confounding factor analysis? Wealth vs health? Wealth vs health care? Working life vs health?
I’ll wait for the real statisticians to suggest what ought to be done about those Harvard epedemiological studies.
I read the official abstract but am none the wiser because the “mortality hazard ratio” is meaningless to me. If it’s the risk ratio, then the results of the “study” are insignificant as a risk ratio only represents the quality/strength of the analsys, not what is being analysed by statistics.
I suppose that if there wasn’t such a thing as air-conditioning, they might have a point.
You can drive by any trailer park anywhere and see air-conditioning units are the rule, not the exception.
Owen says:
April 10, 2012 at 6:29 am
Do the people writing this garbage seriously believe what they are writing about, or are they so cynical and underhanded they know it’s utter BS and do it anyways for the money.
++++++++++++++
The boss asks for a 10 page report showing that eating cherries causes cancer, you have a choice:
1. Produce a report showing that eating cherries does indeed cause cancer, or
2. Look for another job.
If you choose 2, then your boss is going to ask your replacement the same question, and we are back at option 1. Eventually the report will get written.
Your boss can then use your report to short cherry stocks and at the same time promote your report widely to the press. Cherry prices will tumble and your boss will make out like a bandit, all perfectly legal.
If it later turns out your report was bogus, then it is your credentials that will suffer. Your boss can always claim plausible denaibility. So, if you want to survive prefessionally, having written the cherry cancer study, you will deny to the ends of the earth that the report is wrong. Otherwise your career will be short indeed.
The interesting point in all this, is something the intelligence services have known for years. To be truly effective, disinformation works best when the lie is big rather than small.
This is precisely the type of study that is used to forment over-reaching regulatory policy at EPA for generations. It is much like the erroneous assignment of asthma cases to air quality that redirects and slows the economy on a daily basis through less investment. They need a science crutch to lean on and this requires ignoring other cause and effect relationships in order to cement bad policy as ongoing dogma, even when subsequent research points to other, ignored causes. It’s inconvenient to have to admit mistakes onmce the policy train has left the station with years of development and public resources spent.
Re what TomT said. If 1 degree of extra warmth is so dangerous, why do many older people retire to Florida?
How many thousands died 9 weeks ago in Europe and Asia from the cold? Weren’t most of them the elderly?
OOPS! Check my off switch on italics and bold.
TomT says:
April 10, 2012 at 7:31 am
I find it hard to believe that older people have a hard time adjusting to warmer temperature. Down here in Florida I see older people with sweaters on when it is 85.
++++++++++++++++
In the tropics, the locals wear ski jackets in winter, when temperatures drop below 25C (80F). While the tourists from temperature regions are sweating in shorts and t-shirts.
Cities are hotter than nearby forests and parks. So it could be argued that cities kill people.
This can join the study claiming pythons and boas would be living feral in Kansas city and the study claiming that AGW would cause kidney stones, in the trash bin of junk science. And the bill for this sort of trash should be sent to Hansen, Romm and Gore and their ilk.
Hey Harvard morons – let’s turn off all the fossil fueled electric plants and see how many old people die without air conditioning this summer and then stop using fossil fuels to heat their houses and see how many freeze to death next winter? The rise in life expectancy over the last 100 years would not have happened without the use of fossil fuels. Of course you won’t factor THAT into your ‘equation’.
Harold Ambler says:
April 10, 2012 at 4:07 am
These people appear to believe that the ocean-atmosphere system dished out ideal weather worldwide until about 30 years ago. The ignorance of history and science is so extreme as to leave one amazed.
=====
http://www.nas.org/images/documents/A_Crisis_of_Competence.pdf
That would explain why. It says that at California universities, Western/America Civilization course is not required for History major…
You must have missed
“Food fight: CO2 makes us fatter”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/03/13/food-fight-co2-makes-us-fatter/
Now here is a conundrum. Life expectancy in modern western societies continues to increase. This has seen a rise in chronic diseases amongst a growing elderly population, but due to advances in modern medicine, technology and life style mortality in people older than 80 years is still declining.
So what ever increase this research has shown is being overwhelmed by much greater factors that is resulting in an overall increase in life expectancy.
This is the same Harvard group that just declared dairy is no longer healthy. They seem to be on a “everything must” go big brother kick.
http://www.care2.com/greenliving/harvard-declares-dairy-not-part-of-healthy-diet.html#ixzz1iKjtUbTD
So seniors moving from Seattle to Arizona should probably be against the law then, and we should spend billions ensuring that our northern born and raised citizens avoid this certain suicide. That is going to be a big surprise to my retired BIL who just bought property there.
/sarc and utter disbelief
My faith in science to solve any problem is now in the crapper.
My in-laws are in their mid-90’s. As they have aged, the comfortable temperature as increased much more than 1°C. Put’s quite a strain on me when their house is in the lower ’80’s for their comfort. Reading this I just realized I qualify as elderly, I’m over 65 and didn’t know I was in so much risk. The summer temperature versus death is absolute hooey.
According to Age Concern, 23,000 people die each winter in the UK from the cold.
According to statistics I read, in the worst summer on record (2003) there were 23,000 extra deaths in the summer IN THE WHOLE OF EUROPE
In other words, unless we get a rise in temperature there will be 2.3million extra winter deaths over the next century.
The founder or the School of Public Health would, I think, be appalled by this nonsense. He was, in his private writings, always candid and axtremely politically incorrect. One primary goal of the school was to bring honesty to discussions about personal hygene & sexual practices…the political correctness of the day. In his letters he consistantly poked fun at stuffy convention by pointing out reality. He was a practical Doctor and a practical person, and my great grandfather.
Logic rulez!
== Warming reduces variability.
== Variability kills
== CO2 increases warming.
Therefore: Increasing CO2 reduces deaths from variability.
Bring it on!
What is the increase in corn and wheat production from 1C?
I wonder if the Globalwarmists ever thought about the mortality rate if Earth’s temp decreased 1C.
They use words like may, can be, could. In other words its probably just bull! There are more old people than ever before. The average age of americans is increasing. Unfortunately The greenie propaganda is believed by many sheeple.