Cold Weather Sends Death Rate Soaring

Cold Weather Sends Death Rate Soaring

January 2008  - Fatalities in the 
continental United States tend to climb for several weeks after severe 
cold spells, numbering 360 per day and 14,380 per year, according to a new 
study co-authored by two University of California economists. 
Deaths linked to extreme cold account for 0.8 percent of the nation's 
annual death rate and outnumber those attributed to leukemia, murder and 
chronic liver disease combined, the study reports. 
Cold-related deaths reduce the average life expectancy of Americans by at 
least a decade, it says. 
The numbers are "remarkably large," said Enrico Moretti, a UC Berkeley 
associate professor of economics, and Oliver Deschenes, an associate 
professor of economics at UC Santa Barbara, in a December 2007 working 
paper, "Extreme Weather Events, Mortality and Migration." 
Cities recording the biggest numbers of cold weather-related deaths 
include Chicago, Detroit, Minneapolis and Cleveland, according to Moretti 
and Deschenes. 
They estimate that up to 3.2 percent of the annual deaths in those cities 
could be delayed if people reduced their exposure to extremely cold 
weather. 

The study also says that population shifts from colder climates to warmer 
ones - for reasons such as better jobs, cheaper housing and sunshine - 
appear to delay an estimated 4,600 deaths a year. 
The researchers also said that over the past 30 years, longevity gains 
associated with geographic mobility accounted for between four and seven 
percent of the increases in life expectancy in the United States. 
In research conducted for the National Bureau of Economic Research, the 
economists looked at immediate and longer-term death rates after at least 
24 hours at temperatures between 10 and 20 Fahrenheit degrees below normal 
for the county and the month observed. 
Noting increasing concern that higher temperatures and incidence of 
extreme weather events caused by global warming could create major public 
health problems, the economists said they relied on actual, recorded data 
and avoided hypothetical possibilities. 
They found that women account for two-thirds of deaths following a period 
of severe cold, although it is unclear why. Infants and men living in 
low-income areas also are at high risk of dying after a cold spell. 
The death rate declines soon after scorching temperatures subside, while 
deaths after cold spells continue to increase for weeks, the economists 
found. 
Death rates do not escalate after cold snaps that occur when the price of 
oil is high, the study shows. 
Cardiovascular and respiratory diseases are the top causes of death for 
those who die following severe hot or cold weather. 
Data for the extreme weather study came from the U.S. Multiple Causes of 
Death files and included the cause, date and age of death, the county 
where the death occurred in the continental United States, and the sex of 
the person who died. 
The study found that those hardest hit by both heat and cold waves are 
adults 75 years of age or older, many of whom were already physically 
vulnerable and who would likely have died even in the absence of the 
temperature shocks. 
The researchers acknowledged the geographic differences among the nation's 
20 largest metropolitan statistical areas that were included in their 
study. 
For example, residents of San Diego, Los Angeles, Fort Lauderdale and 
Phoenix recorded no bouts of extreme cold, while Philadelphians faced 31 
cold days a year on average, New Yorkers 36, Bostonians 50, Chicagoans 57, 
Detroit residents 69, and Minneapolis residents 109. 
Moretti and Deschenes said that evidence suggests that people can get 
acclimatized to the cold. The recorded death rate was substantially larger 
in countries where people were exposed to 10 or fewer cold days a year and 
lower in counties that have at least 90 cold days a year, they said. 
Moretti said, there seem to be few immediate options for helping those 
most at risk deal with cold weather dangers: "A lifetime of deprivation is 
hard to counteract in the short run." 
Their report is online at: 
http://www.econ.berkeley.edu/~moretti/weather_mortality. 

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