51. Impact of population aging on future temperature-related mortality at different global warming levels.
- Author
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Chen, Kai, de Schrijver, Evan, Sivaraj, Sidharth, Sera, Francesco, Scovronick, Noah, Jiang, Leiwen, Roye, Dominic, Lavigne, Eric, Kyselý, Jan, Urban, Aleš, Schneider, Alexandra, Huber, Veronika, Madureira, Joana, Mistry, Malcolm N., Cvijanovic, Ivana, Armstrong, Ben, Schneider, Rochelle, Tobias, Aurelio, Astrom, Christofer, and Guo, Yuming
- Subjects
OLDER people ,GLOBAL warming ,POPULATION aging ,MORTALITY ,CLIMATE change ,MOSQUITO nets - Abstract
Older adults are generally amongst the most vulnerable to heat and cold. While temperature-related health impacts are projected to increase with global warming, the influence of population aging on these trends remains unclear. Here we show that at 1.5 °C, 2 °C, and 3 °C of global warming, heat-related mortality in 800 locations across 50 countries/areas will increase by 0.5%, 1.0%, and 2.5%, respectively; among which 1 in 5 to 1 in 4 heat-related deaths can be attributed to population aging. Despite a projected decrease in cold-related mortality due to progressive warming alone, population aging will mostly counteract this trend, leading to a net increase in cold-related mortality by 0.1%–0.4% at 1.5–3 °C global warming. Our findings indicate that population aging constitutes a crucial driver for future heat- and cold-related deaths, with increasing mortality burden for both heat and cold due to the aging population. This study reveals that population aging intensifies heat- and cold-related deaths, more so than climate change, in 50 countries. At 1.53 °C global warming, aging contributes to rising heat-related deaths, offsetting declines in cold related death. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2024
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