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Hundessa, S.* ; Huang, W.* ; Xu, R.* ; Yang, Z.* ; Zhao, Q.* ; Gasparrini, A.* ; Armstrong, B.* ; Bell, M.L.* ; Huber, V. ; Urban, A.* ; Coelho, M.R.* ; Sera, F.* ; Tong, S.* ; Royé, D.* ; Kyselý, J.* ; de'Donato, F.* ; Mistry, M.* ; Tobias, A.* ; Iñiguez, C.* ; Ragettli, M.S.* ; Hales, S.* ; Achilleos, S.* ; Klompmaker, J.* ; Li, S.* ; Guo, Y.*

Global excess deaths associated with heatwaves in 2023 and the contribution of human-induced climate change.

Innovation 6:101110 (2025)
Publ. Version/Full Text Research data DOI PMC
Open Access Gold
Creative Commons Lizenzvertrag
An unprecedented heatwave swept the globe in 2023, marking it one of the hottest years on record and raising concerns about its health impacts. However, a comprehensive assessment of the heatwave-related mortality and its attribution to human-induced climate change remains lacking. We aim to address this gap by analyzing high-resolution climate and mortality data from 2,013 locations across 67 countries/territories using a three-stage modeling approach. First, we estimated historical heatwave-mortality associations using a quasi-Poisson regression model with distributed lag structures, considering lag effects, seasonality, and within-week variations. Second, we pooled the estimates in meta-regression, accounting for spatial heterogeneity and potential changes in heatwave-mortality associations over time. Third, we predicted grid-specific (0.5° × 0.5°) association in 2023 and calculated the heatwave-related excess deaths, death ratio, and death rate per million people. Attribution analysis was conducted by comparing heatwave-related mortality under factual and counterfactual climate scenarios. We estimated 178,486 excess deaths (95% empirical confidence interval [eCI], 159,892−204,147) related to the 2023 heatwave, accounting for 0.73% of global deaths, corresponding to 23 deaths per million people. The highest mortality rates occurred in Southern (120, 95% eCI, 116−126), Eastern (107, 95% eCI, 100−114), and Western Europe (66, 95% eCI, 62−70), where the excess death ratio was also higher. Notably, 54.29% (95% eCI, 45.71%−61.36%) of the global heatwave-related deaths were attributable to human-induced climate change. These results underscore the urgent need for adaptive public health interventions and climate mitigation strategies to reduce future mortality burdens in the context of increasing global warming.
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Publication type Article: Journal article
Document type Scientific Article
Keywords All-cause Mortality ; Death Rate ; Excess Death ; Global Burden Of Disease ; Heatwaves ; Human-induced Climate Change; Heat Waves; Mortality; Stress
ISSN (print) / ISBN 2666-6758
e-ISSN 2666-6758
Journal Innovation
Quellenangaben Volume: 6, Issue: 10, Pages: , Article Number: 101110 Supplement: ,
Publisher Zeiss
Publishing Place 50 Hampshire St, Floor 5, Cambridge, Ma 02139 Usa
Institute(s) Institute of Epidemiology (EPI)
Grants Ramon y Cajal' fellowship program of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation
Australian National Health and Medical Research Council
China Scholarship Council
Monash Graduate Scholarship
Monash International Tuition Scholarship
Emerging Leader Fellowship of the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council
Program of Qilu Young Scholars of Shandong University, Jinan, China
VicHealth Postdoctoral Fellowship 2022
Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality, China
EU's Horizon 2020 project, Exhaustion
Wellcome-funded project BREATHE
Czech Ministry of Education Youth and Sport's programme ERC CZ
JSPS KAKENHI
Medical Research Council, United Kingdom
Natural Environment Research Council United Kingdom
Australian Research Council