Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Robert Koch Institute (RKI), Berlin, Germany; Research Centre Human Biometeorology, Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD), Freiburg, Germany; Department of Epidemiology and Health Monitoring, Robert Koch Institute (RKI), Berlin, Germany; Department of Environmental Hygiene, German Environment Agency (UBA), Berlin, Germany.
Dtsch Arztebl Int. 2022 Jul 1;119(26):451-457. doi: 10.3238/arztebl.m2022.0202.
2018-2020 were unusually warm years in Germany, and the summer of 2018 was the second warmest summer since record-keeping began in 1881. Higher temperatures regularly lead to increased mortality, particularly among the elderly.
We used weekly data on all-cause mortality and mean temperature from the period 1992-2021 and estimated the number of heat-related deaths in all of Germany, and in the northern, central, and southern regions of Germany, employing a generalized additive model (GAM). To characterize long-term trends, we compared the effect of heat on mortality over the decades.
Our estimate reveals that the unusually high summer temperatures in Germany between 2018 and 2020 led to a statistically significant number of deaths in all three years. There were approximately 8700 heat-related deaths in 2018, 6900 in 2019, and 3700 in 2020. There was no statistically significant heat-related increase in deaths in 2021. A comparison of the past three decades reveals a slight overall decline in the effect of high temperatures on mortality.
Although evidence suggests that there has been some adaptation to heat over the years, the data from 2018-2020 in particular show that heat events remain a significant threat to human health in Germany.
2018 年至 2020 年是德国异常温暖的年份，2018 年夏季是自 1881 年有记录以来第二热的夏季。较高的温度通常会导致死亡率上升，尤其是在老年人中。
我们使用了 1992 年至 2021 年期间全因死亡率和平均温度的每周数据，并使用广义加性模型（GAM）估计了德国所有地区以及德国北部、中部和南部地区的与热相关的死亡人数。为了描述长期趋势，我们比较了几十年间热对死亡率的影响。
我们的估计表明，德国 2018 年至 2020 年异常高的夏季温度导致这三年的死亡人数均出现了统计学上的显著增加。2018 年约有 8700 人死于与热相关的疾病，2019 年约有 6900 人，2020 年约有 3700 人。2021 年与热相关的死亡人数没有出现统计学上的显著增加。对过去三十年的比较表明，高温对死亡率的影响总体略有下降。
尽管有证据表明，多年来人们已经对高温有所适应，但 2018 年至 2020 年的数据尤其表明，高温事件仍然是德国人类健康的重大威胁。
