The number of yearly heat-related deaths has doubled since 1993, according to a new study in JAMA, the journal of the American Medical Association.
Researchers from the University of Texas at San Antonio looked at death certificates that identified heat as an underlying or contributing cause of death between 1993 and 2023.
They found that heat-related deaths increased from 1,069 in 1993 to about 2,325 in 2023. All told, some 21,518 heat-related deaths were recorded over the last 30 years.
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“As temperatures continue to rise because of climate change, the recent increasing trend is likely to continue,” the researchers wrote in the study, published Monday.
