2023-06-23 11:04:03
During a heat wave in Bordeaux, June 16, 2022. THIBAUD MORITZ / AFP
How deadly is the heat in France? In a report published on Friday June 23, the public health agency France (SPF) looked into this subject which will become more and more worrying in the summers to come. In total, between 2014 and 2022, SPF estimates that 32,658 deaths are attributable to heat between June 1 and September 15 of each year. “Heat waves are the extreme climatic events that have the greatest impact on all age groups of the population”underlines Sébastien Denys, the health-environment-work director at SPF.
More specifically, 28% of these deaths were observed during heat waves, that is to say periods of at least three days during which the temperature, night and day, exceeds the thresholds set by department – in Ile- de-France, for example, the heat wave thresholds are 21°C at night and 31°C during the day.
This figure is important because it shows, implicitly, that the majority of deaths occur outside of these extreme temperature peaks. “Population exposure to heat outside of heat waves, associated with a lower but more frequent risk, contributes more to the total impact than extreme heat associated with a higher but rarer risk”write the SPF experts.
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However, some temperatures remain more deadly than others: nearly a third of deaths are observed during heat waves, whereas they represent only 6% of the days studied during these summer periods. A contribution to the total balance which, for SPF, justifies “the focus of alerts on heat waves”.
It is the summer of 2022 which holds the sad record of recent years, with 6,969 deaths attributable to heat, including 29% during heat waves, followed by the year 2019, with 4,441 deaths, including 42% during heat waves. . Initial estimates, published in November, had estimated the excess mortality at 2,816 people 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 century. . Over the entire summer period, the excess mortality from all causes had been estimated at 10,420 people, a figure mixing both people who died due to high temperatures and those who died due to the seventh wave of Covid. -19.
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Over the period 2014-2022, it is estimated that 71% of the dead were aged 75 and over; almost a third were therefore not part of this category of the most vulnerable population. The SPF report does not, however, give any further details on the precise age of these people. “People who died from the heat are often perceived as very fragile people whose death would have been brought forward by only a few days. However, there is no evidence of this “harvest effect”, with studies exploring the impact over a generally short period”comment the authors.
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